Chapter Six
Matt came by with a package for me a few days later. Knocking quite politely. I asked him in.
“I have like three kinds of cheese,” I said, in a play-wheedling tone.
“I fucking love cheese,” he said.
I was briefly embarrassed by the state of my apartment and then decided it didn’t matter. Without question or pause he flopped onto one of the floor cushions, grabbing another to prop himself up on an elbow. Lounging like a cat, at ease on the floor, laid out like a warlord.
I made us a little plate of fruit and crackers and cheese. What I’d been eating for several days.
“Orange juice or seltzer?” I called.
“Juice,” he hollered.
I curled up opposite him, laying out snacks for us. He grabbed handfuls, barely shifting from his comfortable position. We talked about the weather. Work. He was a good storyteller. Good at painting scenes, at establishing character. Never mean or low. He’d never describe someone as ugly or dumb or cheap– but clearly establish those facts regardless. He never bragged or talked about himself at all really. He talked lovingly about friends and bandmates. Spreading compliments like flower petals– easily, without thought and a great deal of enjoyment.
His tendency to smile at a stranger, to turn to the unknown with a soft face, was apparently just how he approached everything. He expected delight and therefore received it.
Nothing like me. I thought everyone thought I was weird, standoffish and trashy. Always ready to throw fists rather than turn the other cheek. I anticipated misunderstanding and was plagued by it.
We talked for hours again. Lying relaxed together and snacking until the plate was empty. He let me talk and talk and talk about projects. He laughed in wonder, not in spite, when I waxed on about different colors, different kinds of fabric. Like I was doing a complicated magic trick. He glanced at his watch, sighed and lifted himself to his full height.
“Gig tonight,” he said.
“Have fun, be safe,” I said. Wondering if he’d be coming home with somebody tonight.
I was laying in bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the traffic below out my window, when I heard his door gently open and close. I rolled over, face to his wall. Hearing his radio getting turned up. Less than half an hour later, I heard the creak of his bed springs. Hesitantly I rocked my knuckles on the wall. I didn’t get a response and flushed, ashamed. Then I got a knock that I could only think of as having a questioning sound to it. Like “did I hear you knocking?” I knocked this time for real. I heard that slapping thwack again, like his palm. Then the volume of his music rose, for about forty seconds before being dropped again. Letting me know what he was listening to. A vocalist I’d told him I liked.
I chuckled nervously, pulse racing. Getting undressed under the covers and starting to touch myself. For the first time really thinking about him. Not just listening to him, or just experiencing sensation. Of him laying out on my floor, how easy he was in his body. The length of his fingers and how he pushed his hair off his brow with the heels of his hands. How glinty and flirtatious he could be. But also without pressure or motive. How when he’d been relaxing for a while he’d unbutton the top button of his shirt, that revealed that vulnerable triangle of flesh and dark hair. Which helplessly made me picture him shirtless.
I heard what I’d begun thinking of as his wind-up sigh. How in his beginning his noises were long, drawn-out. He’d eventually become staccato as he lost breath. I could practically set a pace for myself against him. Such a specific and unchanging pattern.
I came first, listening to his still soft ‘oh.’ About two minutes later, he finished. I slapped the wall and then clapped a few times. I heard him laughing through the wall. I liked his laugh– sort of hoarse and low. He’d quit smoking several years ago, but I could hear it in his laugh. A little breathless, a little dry still.
I rolled over, sighing. Feeling close and lonely at the same time, and falling asleep.
On Wednesday I was feeling desperate and bad. Saturday was Jon’s open house. I was pretty sure I was going. Roop had offered to join me and stick to my side like glue. But I was so lonely.
I missed him so terribly on Wednesdays. Used to our quiet dinner dates. And the evening almost always ended with a slow, rolling kind of sex. We’d come home from dinner and get undressed. He’d hang up my necklace while I took off makeup. We’d shower together and tumble straight into bed. That date-night sex with Jon was the gentlest. It took longer. And we’d finish and he wouldn’t leave. Often after sex he’d get up and take a shower. Or make a drink. Or go back to work– since we so often had sex in the daylight. But Wednesdays he’d just roll back onto his back, opening his arm to me. Letting me breathe in his sweat and fall asleep on his chest. Getting myself tangled around him. He’d fall so deeply and quickly to sleep that I’d start hyper-focusing on his breath. Feeling unbearably tender and worried about him.
I got home before six that Wednesday. Fussy and kicking around my house. Wondering what to do with myself and feeling tearful. Finally, I got dressed and then knocked on Matt’s door. I heard music, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was home. He let things run all the time, whether he was present. I heard him approach his door, clearly peeking through the fish eye, and then the shush of his chain lock.
“You look like a bag of gummy candy,” he said approvingly.
I was wearing bright green and orange, one of my favorite combos. One of my favorite skirts even, not one of Jon’s though.
“Thank you,” I said curtsying. “Do you uh… You want to go out dancing?” I asked.
He opened his door wider. He was in sweats, an unknown band tee and barefoot. For some reason all of that was unbearably intimate to me.
“Where are you thinking?” he asked, opening his arm backward to let me into his front room. He had his keyboard set up today, he didn’t always. A leaf-scatter of pages around the stool.
I told him the place, sitting on one of the chairs as he wandered back toward his bedroom. I quickly looked away as he stripped off his tee shirt, his back to me as he went through the doorway. Thinking in a strobe-like flash of watching Jon button up his shirt as he changed for date night. And then of him undoing it in the evening. And then thinking of his frown if he knew I was in some shithole apartment watching some other man take off a shirt. I shook my head hard, watching Matt come back in, buttoning up a black shirt, hastily tucking it into black jeans. I was still sort of hiding my face when he called my name and I looked up. Grinning, he took a flash photo of me. I put my hand up, instantly arguing and asking for the print.
“Okay, one where you know what’s coming,” he agreed.
I posed and hopefully didn’t look caught unawares this time. He set it carefully onto a music stand.
Still, though, I was caught on that moment of his skin. I didn’t want to, but I was thinking of him bare. He was so pale, and I wondered if he was even lighter where he was usually covered. And I wanted to see his bedroom. How he had appointed it. Was his bed parallel to mine? And was the rest of the room? He wasn’t a slob, but he wasn’t neat. If I stepped in, would his blankets be askew? Pillow sliding off the bed? Discarded socks and jeans and CDs stacked and never replaced into cases? But if I had a fuller picture, wouldn’t everything be so much worse?
“I know a better place for you,” he said, reaching down, taking my hand and making me shiver as he helped me off the chair.
Another mean-nothing for him. He just touched– there was no intention in his hand. And I wasn’t used to that from men at all. Jon would say, sometimes lovingly, sometimes with disapproval, that I was “touchable.” That people had an unbearable urge to lay hands on me. And I felt that sometimes in other people. Like they had an aching need to get fingers on me, to linger in touch longer than was proper. But it wasn’t quite that way from Matt– none of that teeth gnashing hunger. Just human-to-human.
And I wondered how it could be both ways. That I almost felt urgency when his palm was on my wall, but when it was on me, he was nothing but gentle. Was it just because I’d told him ‘no’? Just because I’d set some ever-wavering and unclear boundary? “If I cannot see you we can be in desire together but when we’re together leave me be”? I didn’t know.
We headed down to the train station, shivering a little in light jackets. Hopping on the train further downtown from where we were. Only riding for a few stops and getting off. He took my hand again, to help me ford through the train station. Not that it was terribly busy, not on a Wednesday, but people were bustling, not wanting to be outside anymore. I tended to get run down in aggressive crowds.
When we arrived at the club he’d picked I laughed a little. The Forge. Dark and moody thematically, music percussive and violent. Promising “Metal Night.” He smiled down sideways at me, pushing me through the door.
The vibe was immaculate. He and I were both way too old to be in this kind of club. I was dressed wrong– at least he had the right color palette, but he wasn’t dressed right either. I didn’t recognize the song playing but it sort of didn’t matter. It brought me nostalgically right back to over-loud music on my headphones in my shitty, thin-walled bedroom as a kid. Banging my head, whipping my tangled hair. He’d remembered that I said I used to really like speed metal as a kid, apparently. He pulled me in close, briefly. Dropping his chin almost to my shoulder, lip almost on my ear. I felt his facial hair against my cheek and jaw.
“I won’t be able to lose you in those colors!” he yelled into my ear. I laughed again, the sound immediately taken by the overwhelming music.
We danced for a long while. I knew that I was overdoing it– I’d feel the stomping in my knees and heels tomorrow. Feel the strain in my neck and regret it for sure. My hair was too heavy for the whirls I’d pinned it in. I pulled the bobby pins out, shoving them into my single slim hip pocket, letting it fall down my shoulders for the first time in public in years. Jon liked it tidy.
I even whipped it for a second, practically hearing my chiropractor screaming at me as I did. He kept us dancing forward, until we were near the DJ booth. Matt knocked loudly on it and a demonic face popped up in corpse paint and then grinned at Matt.
“Hey!”
“Hey!” They screamed at each other.
Quickly trading a complicated handshake. Matt mimed for a pen. He scribbled something and handed it off to the DJ. The DJ cocked a blackened eyebrow, grinned again and shrugged. When the next song faded in, I recognized it instantly. The one I said had been on repeat for the worst year of my life. Way too old for this crowd and certainly no longer de rigeur. Not that it stopped proceedings, but still.
I laughed helplessly, reaching out for Matt in the darkness. We moved hard and fast together, pressed even closer by the crowd crushing into us.
And now I could smell him– soap and oil but the sudden clean heat of him too. Becoming dewy with the bodies on the floor and our exertion. His hair a mess, mostly falling into his face now and shadowing him further. It made him look younger but more dangerous. When the song ended he grabbed me around the waist, tucking me securely into his side and pulling me toward a red-lit stairwell. With anyone else I would have felt fearful, but not with him.
It turned out it just led to an ever-so-slightly quieter space– filtered from the dance floor, a huge Pentagram bar set up.
Bending down toward me, I tilted my face and ear up to him. Waiting to get that face-to-face contact again, but it didn’t come.
“Soda?” he yelled.
I nodded, watching him use the length of his limbs and his height to fight up to the bar. He kept getting stopped by people. Shaking hands, clapping shoulders, giving out high-fives and hugs indiscriminately. He seemed to know everybody. He and the bartender spoke for several minutes. I mostly watched him, but looked around happily at all the wonderful outfits. Loving the girls with white faces, the boys with nail polish. All the corsets and spikes and leather. I’d so badly wanted to be this as a teen. The reason other people crossed to the opposite side of the street. But by the time I was able to buy my own clothes, I’d gone corporate. And even though I’d always dressed “fun” corporate for work, since it was technically a “creative” field, none of that was looked upon kindly by Jon or the club or anyone else. So… It just never happened.
Matt came back, extending a sweating plastic cup of soda at me. Sipping his own hungrily, crunching on ice chips.
“Ready for bed?” he hollered. It made my heart leap, but I just smiled at him.
“One more song!” I yelled back.
We went back up to the dance floor after tossing our cups into one of the trash barrels. He kept a hand on my back, pushing me forward up the stairs as other people tried to push me out of the way to go down. I slinked along the wall, but he kept me upright and moving, blocking folks going the opposite direction with his elbow, so I didn’t get hurt.
We danced for another song. He raised his eyebrows in askance at me. I shook my head. He playfully rolled his eyes.
We went until we just couldn’t anymore. His palm on my lower back, his hand on my elbow, he got us back out to the front door. We burst onto the sidewalk. The sweat instantly went clammy as the night air hit my skin and cooled me. I took a big breath for a second, enjoying the chill, until I smelled all the cigarette smoke from all the people taking a break outside the club doors. We fought out of the crowd and made haste toward the train.
He found me a seat on the far car of the train. Standing right in front of me, hanging onto a strap. Looking around, watching the lights flash and the downtown traffic through the window behind me. I just looked at him. He looked peaceful– pleasantly worn like he’d had a long day at a lake or on a boat or something. His mustache still twisted up, his hair a ruin though. I was glad he didn’t stiffly gel it though. He had such pretty, fine hair. Like silk falling across his skin, full of luster.
He saw me staring at him and smiled down at me.
“Didja have a good time, baby?” he asked.
“I had a lovely time. But ugh, not baby,” I said. Even this seemed to have no real flirtation behind it.
“I like to be called baby. Babygirl?” he asked.
“Oh, no,” I said.
“Sweetheart?”
“So old-fashioned.”
“Kitten?”
“Oh fuck no,” I said, making him laugh.
“Darling?” he asked.
I went kind of cool and still. How different darling sounded out of what was effectively a stranger's mouth. Knocking me dumb for a moment.
“No,” I said softly.
He noticed the tone shift. He was like that– probably too sensitive to other people. I imagined as a romantic partner he’d be the type to ask, “are you angry at me?”
“Then what, honey?” The question was back to that same play but the way he said it was like he was spreading comfort down on the top of my head.
“Just call me by my name,” I said, finally looking back up at him.
He smiled again. Lifting me from the chair again when we reached our stop.
We had one more drink in my kitchen, as I kicked off my painful shoes. He thanked me for the invite and I listened to him going back into his apartment. Shuffling. The heavy tonk of his boots hitting the floor as he untied them and let them fall.
I turned on my shower, and heard his going too. And then we were apparently back in our beds.
I knocked lightly. He knocked back, more firmly. Like he’d been waiting and had grown impatient.
I listened to his rhythm again. Gushing over my fingers though this time. Too early. Too obviously early. Maybe he’d guess that I was thinking of his hips and his torso against mine tonight. His heft and scent and his strong hands on me. Without pressure. Just enjoying himself in his present. His hair falling onto his eyebrows, the way he’d shake it back off.
I lay curled against the wall, feeling the stickiness between my thighs, listening to his finishing. That mournful wind-up he had to the conclusion. But when he did this time it was, “Oh, Anna.”
I lay still in bed for a long moment. Started shaking, eyes with a scrum of tears. Hearing his palm whickering across the wall. I did the same, but then rolled to the far side of the bed.
Chapter Seven
At work, while I was doing a sketch for something, I found myself doodling. Realizing it was him drinking his orange soda float. Giggling when I wondered for the first time if the look he cultivated was purposefully to make him look like a classic illustration of Satan. With the groomed facial hair and the swept-back hair over his brow. Some lingering little rebellion against childhood.
On my way back home from work, I stopped at the “fancy” candy store. I knew they had a wall of “gourmet” sodas. I picked him out a six-pack. Grape and Italian lemon, but making sure to grab two tangerine creams for him.
When I got back to the apartment, I knocked at his door first, though I didn’t expect him at this time of day. Nor was he there, or anyway, not answering. I tucked the doodle of him sucking down his float into the sodas and left it outside his front door and went into my place to snack and read.
I was laying in bed with my book and tea when I heard a chuckle outside my door and the clanking of the bottles. I smiled, pressing my hands together in a silent clap that I’d managed to amuse him. Then I heard soft conversation as he unlocked his door. He wasn’t alone.
I was beginning to drift off to sleep about an hour later when I heard his bed creaking. I held my breath, listening closer. Feeling something frozen and deeply uncomfortable. Jealousy? How dare I?
I listened to his music turn up. Electronica again. Knowing if it was that first woman I’d seen, who I’d mistaken for my neighbor. The one who was “oh love.” I listened, but unwillingly. The mix of guilt I’d been feeling for eavesdropping now in a thick, dark swirl of jealousy as well. Thinking about how well he used his body when we were dancing and knowing he was putting it to use again. But with someone else. In a way, I pictured a few thousand different ways. I knew his voice and breath– I knew the orchestration of his desire. But how did he look? He sounded so vulnerable when he did, so I often thought his pretty mouth would open, go soft. His eyelids fluttered closed, whatever tension he had draining out of him. But then maybe not. Maybe it was triumph– maybe his weapon-like teeth becoming prominent, ready to sink into the neck of whoever was taking him. I could imagine he clutched and hung on because he loved to touch and be touched. I’d seen him hug nearly a dozen people just at the club. He did it full-bodied, losing himself in it. Never the first one to break away.
He wouldn’t be like Jon. Finishing with a grunt and rolling from me. Standing beside the bed, drinking from my glass of water on the nightstand. Patting my head when I reached out for him, trying to draw him back. But he’d just bend forward, kiss me in a passing way on the cheek, and step into the shower. When he came back, any scent of our sex washed away, he’d pat my hip, urging me back to my side of the bed.
I knew it wasn’t that way with Matt. I imagined I’d have to fight to get away. Picturing an octopus clamp of his limbs and fingers on me.
I rolled away from the wall, to the far side of my bed. Lonely, horny, angry at myself. Once I heard them finish, maybe I would still masturbate. I was still painfully aroused but for a variety of reasons couldn’t stand to do it to them having sex.
When I heard his “Oh, love,” again I rolled prone once more. Jerked off in frustration and fell asleep pretty quickly afterward.
I woke up to the sound of laughter from next door. A woman’s– tinkling glass, pretty laughter. I glanced at my phone. A little after two. I sleepily smiled. Thinking about how funny Matt was. He was accurate about people, though never cruel. He approached the mundane with whimsy, and so he could turn the ordinary quite sideways and make it silly.
I heard the laughter again and was about to pull my blanket over my head when I heard him speaking. The rhythm was off though, or something. Something that made my stomach churn. I pressed my ear to the wall. I couldn’t make out words, just his cadence. And it was rushed, tight. Like he was trying to tumble out words before he could be interrupted. I knew that feeling. The laughter hadn’t been genuine, or a response to a joke. Something lacquered cruel about it. I listened for a moment longer. Hearing the bed springs creak once, and then again, heavier and more rushed. I lay on my back. Hearing his front door open and close. The juddering crank of the elevator leaving. After that I listened to the wall again. The weight of him, just him alone, presumably, hitting the mattress. Straining my ears to be sure of his aloneness. I heard his breath hitching. Once, twice and then a third time. A hiccuping breath. Heard him laying back down. I brushed my palm on the wall. Back and forth. Approximately where his hand would be if he too was laying on his side and facing the wall like I was. Feeling the heaviness of my own tears in the cup of my eyes. Wishing I could just give him the privacy he deserved, listening to him weep from afar. Or wishing that I could be courageous and go to him. But I couldn’t do either.
**