The Female of the Species

by Lionel Shriver

  For some reason, this is enough tending. You will take off the rest yourself. You drop your legs over the side of the bed and roll down your hose, slipping your fingers under the nylon and running them down each leg to the toe. Oh, you’re not in a hurry; you enjoy this. You’re proud of your legs—you think I don’t know? You’ve never had to say so. From way back in photographs, even when skirts were long, you’ve had a way of getting them before the camera. There’s one picture in which you’re turning quickly and the skirt swirls above the knee; the pose by Corgie’s ladder, with his parachute silk slit all the way up the thigh; or sitting on that pier? In Ghana? You remember? With a brightly colored dress gathered in your lap and your ankles crossed and gleaming, for you’d dangled your feet in the water a moment before.

  Even in that very first film I saw of you, I remember those long legs angling into the camera. I’m sure you haven’t watched it in years, but I’ll never forget it: New Guinea: Land of the Hidden Peoples. It was a bad film technically, and the text was hideous. I’m sure you didn’t produce it, but there you were, wading through the river with your skirts held high again, the water rippling over those high, full calves of yours, your narrow ankles flashing their small white bones as you lifted each foot from the water. You weren’t yet thirty years old, but at the time you looked older. I thought you were beautiful. I’d never met you. It was for this first film, not for your reputation, that I swore to take that seminar with you, no matter how long I had to remain on the waiting list. I remembered your laughter. I remembered seeing, even though the filmmakers had tried to disguise anything true, that you weren’t just working—you were having a wonderful time. It was clear, too, from the eyes around you: they were not simpering or awed. The people of that tribe liked you. This time you had come to them as ordinary. You showed them your ten fingers and ten toes, like theirs; you showed them your long, strong legs and how far you could hike with them into the mountains without complaint. You offered, too, to carry bundles, and they tried to keep them from you—a woman—a white woman—but you insisted and carried your load. You washed your own clothes on stones. Your hair was tawny then; you kept it back, and it went bright blond in the sun—how often I’ve watched it do that, until now it remains this gray-gold, a wistful color, fine and nostalgic and soft to the touch.

  Errol looked down. The squares of sun had elongated at his feet into rectangles and deepened to vermilion, the color of persimmons. Errol rubbed the smooth wooden banister. It was oily from so many hands. He looked at the pearly grain under his fingers. Splinters of blond wood caught the light under the dark stain. The banister was warm. The foyer was elaborately quiet. He could hear nothing from upstairs. Gray, it’s so brilliant here. Your room must be on fire.

  Your room is on fire. No longer do you lie passive on the spread. Huge spans of flaming orange sun are thrown against the walls behind you as you pull back the blankets and extend on the bed. He undresses swiftly and with that lithe animal grace he uses on tennis courts and in the living rooms of burned-out buildings. The sun cuts a wide diagonal across your body. You are at home in your body. It is long and strong and thin, and takes up the bed from head to foot. That sunlight is hitting his pupils now. The lines of his irises catch the red in splinters like the grains of this banister. There is a naked man in your room. There is an animal in your room. He has climbed in beside you. He is over your neck. His eyes are burrowing and flecked with red. His mouth is overhead, and now that tongue is sunk into your throat, lower and deeper than you thought it could go. This has all been so chaste, Gray, I know—it must be a relief to feel the full length of his body all at once against yours; to feel his arms around your back; to feel the skim of sweat between your skins, the lubrication that makes moving parts function smoothly. The knobs of your shoulders meet and roll against each other, neat and quiet like bearings packed in oil.

  You feel it against your stomach. You’d always thought it would frighten you; instead, it’s a great comfort, even a thrill, like a new and exotic animal you might find in the bush that means you no harm. You fit it neatly into the socket of your hipbone, as if to make it feel at home. The surprise is how reasonable this feels. The surprise is that your body takes to this simply, and that you don’t have to think. You look in his eyes, and they undulate—they’ve become larger and their perimeters are no longer defined. The pupils shift like deep black water lapping up against the bright sand of their whites. He is no longer an exact, precise person, with traits, idiosyncrasies, things to say. He has become wider and more vague. Every observation you could make of him would be both true and a lie.

  It is against your thigh. Its nose nudges forward. It is between both thighs. Why does it seem you have done this always? How can this be at once so new and so familiar? You think, Why is the rhythm of his body as it builds against me so easy, so understandable? Why is this a code I don’t need to decipher? His body moves like waves pushing forward, washing back. You feel the breaking, you feel the undertow.

  You have been on your side. He shifts you onto your back. Wash forward. Pull back. It is time. You can’t help but smile. On his face is the look of falling into a cavern, plunging from a great height when you want to, throwing yourself into a dark distance with great joy.

  You open, and fill. You pour, and fill. For so long you have expected this to make you regretful: how terrible I haven’t done this before; how wonderful; how deprived I’ve been. In the oddest way, though, it is fine that you’ve waited. This is the correct time. Just. Now. You are full of him. There is no regret. It is best now.

  The procedure is even and simple and brilliant. Why did you ever think there was anything to learn? Why did you think there was something wrong with you? Yes, it has taken fifty-nine years for you to be ready. But that’s quite different from never being ready.

  Yet all this thinking is disappearing. Ideas of what you are doing float off into the warm golden air—you can almost see them rise like balloons and pop at the ceiling. There is only color left, and breathing. There is only motion left, like music. Nothing remains to think, so it doesn’t even occur to you that your mind has risen to the ceiling and popped. Who you are is gone. What you are doing, the idea, is gone. The light in the room pulses; the squares of vermilion on the wall brighten when you inhale, blacken when you breathe out. Gradually they lift from the wall and pull forward, wrap around you. What has happened is that diagonal across your body has moved—the sun has set a few more degrees and is striking your two bodies in full now. The shifting of the sun does not occur to you, though. Stars and orbits no longer exist. You are not even aware that this is sunlight. It is hot color you create. If you were thinking, you’d imagine you were hallucinating. But you have no more ideas. And if you were thinking, you’d know it’s a relief to have no more ideas.

  Yet Errol had to stop. He himself felt giddy, and the squares of sun at his own feet loomed off the floor. He held on to the banister now just to keep his balance. When he looked at the ceiling it seemed to throb. Sweat was running in streams down his neck, and he noticed his shirt was drenched now. His breathing was strained. He was leaving something out. It was best, he supposed, to face things. There was a fact missing in his projection overhead. Errol would try to insert it, and then see if the banister was enough to keep him standing.

  The man. Errol took a breath. The man upstairs—Sorry, but overhead it’s not only rhythm and sunlight, color and mindlessness. A great deal is blurry now and floating and wildly colored over the width of that room, but one thing remains utterly clear. Oh, Errol. Must you have it put to you so bluntly? Upstairs. There is a man. There is a man, Errol, and it is Ralph, Errol, it is Ralph and not you.

  The banister was not enough. Errol crumpled onto the first stair. It was as if someone had punched him in the solar plexus and knocked all the air from his lungs. Errol leaned his head up against the railing and wrapped his arms around his chest. He stroked his sides up and down, nestling his fingers lovingly into the depressions
of his own ribs. Then he drew his knees to his chest and held his legs tightly. He put his cheek to his knee. Held in his own embrace, Errol felt comforted, as if by a different person. The man who offered him succor was not a stranger; indeed, he knew Errol well. Yet he was distant and, even in his consolation, cold. He could see Errol’s peril but not sanction it. It was all very sad that Errol was crumpled at the foot of these stairs, but not admirable. The man who held him there was strong and stoic and did not accept excuses. He was, of course, Errol himself—the Errol that endured, that would endure all of this and absolutely anything else Errol chose to subject himself to. Errol felt his double, then, extend a hand and lift him, with kindness but also with severity, from his crouch on the stairs and help him over to the den, where he collapsed weakly into the couch. Errol’s head fell back. His face felt white. His arms went cold. He would no longer think about Gray just now. They would have to finish without him. No doubt they would manage just fine.

  The air was cooler than before, and darker. The dim light in the room was relaxing; Errol was relieved to be away from the vermilion patches rising at him from the floor. The colors in this room tonight were even and kind, as if seen through gray-tinted lenses. The tick of the large clock at his side soothed Errol into the cushions of the couch. Errol knew he would fix himself a cool glass of white wine soon, but not just yet. The clock chimed eight times. The rhythm of the bells was careful and slow. The room filled with round, low sound. The upholstery vibrated under Errol’s fingertips. It was over. It was over, and Errol was all right. You are all right, said the man. You can take anything. Now, sit there. Open your collar. There’s a book you’re in the middle of, and within the hour you’ll be able to read it, with concentration. I’ll get you that glass of wine. You’ll be fine. Sometimes a comfortable sofa and a book and a glass of wine are enough. Sometimes a quiet evening as it gets dark is enough. And you’re lucky for that, too. For tonight, you mustn’t expect more.

  Errol got up and went to the kitchen and felt his own mouth smile with a wan tenderness, the kind of smile a physician might use with a formerly brilliant patient who had lost his mind.

  19

  Errol spent the night at Gray’s. The worst was over, and to go back to his own apartment would not have spared him anything but simply have forced him to make a drive on an evening when he had no desire to make an effort of any kind.

  He woke the next morning to the sound of the shower. Errol felt every muscle in his body tense one by one as it woke. Rigidly he lay in bed listening to the water, to the moan of pipes.

  Gray took her showers at night.

  Errol remained in bed, though no longer sleepy. It was childish to think he could avoid this upcoming breakfast scene by hiding under the sheet, but still he stayed there as long as he could stand it. Finally, like a good soldier, Errol rose, dressed efficiently, and trooped downstairs. Lieutenant McEchern, reporting for heartbreak, sir.

  Raphael was already in the kitchen, with Gray nowhere in sight. Stiff as his upper lip had been, Errol had to pause with a faint wave of nausea from what he found at the counter: Raphael was wearing a towel tucked around his waist. The hair on his chest was curling from his shower; the hair on his head was slicked back in an unpleasant Valentino style. He was making coffee, and seemed to know where the beans and filters were kept. His gestures were blithe. One night and the guy comes down in a goddamned towel and makes coffee as if he’s done it a hundred times before. He acts as if he lives here.

  Masochistically curious, Errol hung back from the doorway and watched Raphael glide over to the refrigerator and survey its contents, picking at this and that until he found something of interest. Gray had recently been given a whole Scotch salmon by a visiting dignitary; he pulled it out. Errol bristled. Sealed in cellophane, the fish would have kept for several weeks, but the unopened package didn’t intimidate Raphael. He sliced into the plastic and cut himself a generous slab, then rolled it around a hunk of cream cheese. He munched on this handful distractedly as he studied the various international utensils hanging on the walls. He didn’t look very interested, and returned to the refrigerator to drag out a few more expensive snacks. Errol felt like a Roman whose city has just been overrun by Visigoths. Welcome to the Dark Ages.

  “Morning, McEchern,” said Raphael, still pawing through the refrigerator.

  “I didn’t mean to spy,” said Errol, flustered. “But I don’t usually find a naked man in this kitchen. It gives me pause.”

  “Well, get used to it.”

  “I don’t bother to habituate myself to singular occurrences.”

  Raphael smiled to himself, and returned to his salmon.

  “Sarasola,” said Errol with exasperation, “you’re butchering that fish.”

  “I’m a brute, McEchern, what can I tell you?” Raphael went on sawing away at the salmon.

  “It’s pre-sliced!”

  “Ask me how much I care.”

  “The point is, I care.”

  “This is your fish?”

  Errol squirmed. “No.”

  “Well then.”

  Raphael had already lost interest in the salmon, anyway, and turned to the crab salad. Errol poured himself a cup of coffee and took it upstairs to his office, remembering with a pang that the Dark Ages had lasted a hideously long time.

  About midmorning Errol could no longer pretend to be working, so he wandered into Gray’s office. Gray wasn’t even pretending to work but was standing by her window humming, keeping time to her tune by tapping her fingers against the windowpane. This whole house was becoming an anthropological farce.

  “Earth to Kaiser.”

  “We read you, base station.”

  When she turned around, Errol started. For a moment Errol could have sworn she’d just stepped out of New Guinea: Land of the Hidden Peoples at the very beginning of her career.

  “I was going to ask you if you were all right,” said Errol. “I guess I don’t have to. You’re aglow.”

  “Radioactive.”

  It was true. She pulsed. Errol was careful not to get too close. “Where’s the young barbarian?”

  “He drove to the beach. He’ll be back tonight.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t go with him. You don’t seem to be getting a lot done here.”

  “I didn’t stay to work,” said Gray, taking slow, buoyant steps around the room. “I stayed to think and sing little songs and talk to myself a lot. Sometimes I enjoy things more when I’m not actually in them.”

  “You like to bask.”

  “Exactly. Raphael can do that on the beach. I don’t need the beach.”

  “I can see that. I think I could get a tan by lying out in this office this morning. Do you want me to leave you alone?”

  “Soon. But not now. I don’t even care. I feel amenable.”

  “If you don’t care—”

  “No; stay, Errol. I didn’t mean it that way. I’m happy to see you. You look wonderful this morning.”

  “I look dreadful. But you…Do you want to talk about it? Or not?”

  “I don’t know.” She considered. “We could try. I’ll tell you if we have to stop.”

  “I don’t want to pry, Gray. I just wondered if you were right. If it was dangerous.”

  She paused. “Yes,” she said at last. “Very.”

  “Even after the South Bronx?”

  “It was all—of a piece. Yesterday was one big dangerous day. What was in peril was—my life. In the Bronx; in my room.”

  “But you came through.”

  She laughed. “Barely.”

  “Did it hurt?”

  “Well, the whole thing was—wrenching, somehow. And I am a little sore this morning. But whether it hurt at the time I couldn’t tell you.” Gray smiled. “Now, why doesn’t it embarrass me to talk about this with you? Should I be shy? Would you feel better?”

  “I think I can generate enough embarrassment for both of us.”

  “Good. I’m not in the mood.�
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  “Since you’re not shy this morning, there was one thing I was wondering. Are you still fertile?”

  “Funny you should ask that. I think I am, which is odd. It’s as if my body were waiting. In fact, I suppose I took a risk last night. But the chances against pregnancy must be astronomical.” She sounded wistful.

  “Do you regret not having children?”

  “I’ve always been too—behind for children.”

  “Well, it’s obviously too late. I just wondered.”

  “I mean I couldn’t have had them at thirty, don’t you see? I’m barely ready for a man now; I’ll be ready for children in three or four years. I’m stunted, Errol, slow. The kind of person who goes to a special school until she’s thirty-five. Sometimes I’m surprised I get articles published and lectures engaged, when it’s amazing I can tie my own shoes or go to a grocery store.” She looked concerned for a moment, but couldn’t keep it up. “If I stay inside any longer, I’m going to jump out this window. I’m going for a walk. I’ll work this afternoon, I promise.”

  “You don’t have to report to me, Gray. Take the whole day off if you want.”

  “No, I do have to report to you, Errol. That’s one of the things you’re for.” With that she slipped on her shoes and tripped out the door.