She: [Monday 10:30 AM.] He is the question and the issue. Her answer is found in the Rune, Inguz, which represents fertility, new beginnings & the god Ing. This Rune also represents the need to share, to be wanted, the search for similarities & an impulse toward harmony in personal relationships. It could signal a new way, a new relationship, the end of a time of lethargy, the liberation from tension and uncertainty. However, it is necessary to fertilize the ground for such liberation. Not blood. Well maybe some, but just symbolically. Keep your feet on the ground & stay away from undesirable influences. This is a good moment to complete any pending project. That was what the casting said and she thought that whatever must happen, would follow.
He: [Monday 9:01 AM.] Walking towards the door, he felt the instinctive shift into travel mode. The weight of the shoulder bag with the laptop and notebooks, the cell phone in his pocket. Familiar and necessary, continuity from day to day wherever he was. He’d spent so many years living on the move, functionally nomadic – traveling light and quickly from one assignment to another. Leaving was automatic. He’d gone through the mental checklist as he packed. The objective was to get to the airport on time, go through security without arousing suspicion, habitually shifting metal objects out of the pants pockets and into the suit or sports jacket that would go through the x-ray machine.
He assumed the plane would leave on time and a few drinks or a nap later, arrive somewhere safely. He always assumed he would return. He always assumed that a welcome would be offered though often there was no one there to do so. The trick was a letting go of everything he could not control and an embrace of the “Zen” of travel. It would take as long as it would take.
He hesitated just past the sliding doors, was about to turn and look back, drink in her smile one more time, to see if she would show some sign of their emotional position. He would have to think about that. Utilize the semi-trance state of flight to crystallize what happened, remember the sound of her voice, the oval of face, the length and texture of body, smell, the taste of her, and what she said or not. Try to find a balance between what he could feel himself wanting and the fact of distance between them. Not only the miles but the difference in lifestyles. Just as he was about to turn to see if she was still there the cell phone rang. He answered it and was sucked into the maw of next.
She: [Monday 9 AM.] She stopped the car curbside and climbed out, leaving it running to give him a quick hug as he exited the passenger door. His intention is not manifest in the embrace. She couldn’t read his body language. Having shouldered his gear, he hugged her in a perfunctory manner and lumbered off lopsided under the weight. He’s carrying home more than he had brought with him.
On her part, having given him some of the “what” he carries she does not feel lighter, only less complete. He does not turn back to give that half salute so common to travelers saying good-bye. She knows not to ask for the usual reassurances: will you call me? When will we see each other again? That would be too cliché. She has an instinct about such things.
Just inside the terminal he pauses. She puts the car in gear, drives past the still open automatic doors. Slowing down she wants to see him finally turn and wave. She’d take that as an acknowledgment of what she has extended in invitation. Until what she thought of as a heart contract is agreed or refused, she is incomplete. But having not spoken of her need for reassurance, and it surely was that, he was focused on something else. She could have said something but it was better if he came to it on his own. Nothing is forthcoming. She accelerates, her car joins traffic and is gone.
He: [Monday 7:45 AM.] Breakfast was at an outdoor café. She did not think of their time as special, or at least she did not remark on it while he savored the warmth of the day’s beginning. He studied her face, the way the light fell on her hair, the way her hands moved while she talked. He wanted to soak it up like it was life-saving water that he could squeeze out drop by drop on the flight back or in tonight’s cold and gray Chicago, a place he was living in as much of necessity as of choice. The well-paying day job, the work for which there would never be an end, would be waiting. And of course, the tooth would have to be dealt with.
It had been a few years since he had been to a dentist which set up his own pity party of delay and deny, but even that wouldn’t be possible till tomorrow or after. Yes, by the measure of pain he increasingly felt, the tooth would have to be dealt with. At best a new crown or a root canal. At worst, the thing would have to come out. At this juncture that did not seem a terrible solution.
He was trying to ignore that now. Happy to eat good food, drink strong coffee, sit with this beautiful woman. He thought they were a well-matched couple. He wondered about her age. Close to his own? Possibly. He hadn’t asked, she hadn’t offered. Was she five years younger? Older? He could not tell. It did not really matter. She radiated vitality and sensuality. She radiated experience in matters of love and lust. He liked that but shut out the thought. As soon as he began to think of them as a couple, he would be lost to wanting that absent life.
It would not take much for him to want to cook for her, walk with her through the neighborhoods in the evening, and sit before the fire reading. If he thought of her that way, he would have to spin out a dream of years together or ask himself why he was leaving. Why not stay? Quit the job, abandon everything that was not in his suitcase and start again. Why not believe in the possibility that they belonged together? Though she had been present to him, he reminded himself that she had not indicated an interest in anything more than this weekend.
It had been a long time since he had let himself fall head over heels. It usually ended badly, but that was then and this was…. Not then. He sat back in the chair, watched the birds search for crumbs beneath the tables. Those birds would settle for now but they did not know the airport was a half-hour away. He did and as soon as that thought came, he put away speculation about a future them and turned his attention to next.
He: [Monday 5:10 AM] The soft blue bathrobe opened. The line of the robe a graceful moving curve, lovely but not as lovely as her body beneath it. The line of her neck, the line of her strong chin, the line of her lips in a half smile. When she lay next to him, he stroked the curve of the body under the robe’s fabric. She awoke a feeling in him that he had forgotten. It was not just the sex. The sex was good, very good. It made him want to give up silence and cry out her name, but years of cautious habit held sway and he said it inside his head instead of out loud.
He could offer sweet talk, but while those words were still forming, he concentrated instead on the weight of her body, the feel of skin, long limbs, the shape of hip. He wanted to remember it all in case this was a dream. If it was slumber’s entertainment, he did not want to waken, but carry it with him into the day.
She: [Monday 5 AM] In the early morning hours she slipped back into his room, a room dark and heavy with his primal smells: sleep, sweat, sex. He awoke, beckoned her to the bed. She responded as she had done before. It was instinct. He would welcome her into his arms with that slightly hoarse voice telling her she was beautiful, the half-open eyes measuring her form. Some would say he had bedroom eyes. She was never sure what bedroom eyes meant. Still, she blushed in the dark at the thought that he actually saw her.
Casting off shyness, she takes off the bathrobe, shows herself to him. She is confident that her fingers can pull & stroke & tease their way to the tumult of the orgasm. This time she found it easier to show him her naked body. It was not the body of her young and eager self, it reflected a measure of experience, the softening of belly and thighs no matter how much she ran. He complimented her on that physicality and that was permission. A kind of permission to believe that she is beautiful and having not heard that from the first husband, the one who left her for another. She frolics in the discovery that she does not have to take care of him. She does not have to prop up his ego. She does not have to pretend that he rocked her world when it had only begun to quake.
How do you tell a man what a grace it is not to have to hold him up? How do you even begin to tell a man what it feels like to be with him without any care but for their mutual pleasure?
Earlier he had offered to court her with erotic poetry but what drew them to each other was the longing for release. They stretched out together on his bed as if this place was the unspoken common ground. But what she thought he really wanted was for her to expose her soul. She was not ready to do that, not now, not yet. The thought of it made her tremble and he thinking that it was an orgasm, said he was pleased to have wrought such pleasure.
He: [Monday 1:20 AM] In the middle of the night, the mix of pain and pleasure was intense. His jaw and cheek throbbed. He was thirsty. His had been so tired that he was twitchy, he had to get up and do a half dozen quick deep knee bends and stretch first one leg and then the other to try to release tension. He is embarrassed by his physical restlessness.
He thought about the sex of the night before. It was not a release as much as it had propelled him further into his own physicality. He felt everything. Her mouth across his skin, the teeth biting the nipple, her confident touch along the belly. His hands around her waist, her hands on his shoulders like open electrical conduits. He could feel her breath through his pores. He forgot about the tooth for a moment. He had surrendered to the physical passing between them; he felt as if there was one thing that was right in the world.
He had not had this kind of lovemaking in a long time. He wanted to give her the pleasures he thought she wanted. The gift of age, he thought is knowing enough of this or that for variety’s sake. Mutuality is greedy, self-serving joy. He wanted her quickness of breath and his own forgetting of self. Yes, he wanted her and yes, he had to admit he wanted her to want him.
She: [Sunday 6 PM] When she stopped at his door to wake him from a nap, he beckoned her to his side. She thought he had been a success. They both had been. Yet she felt disturbed and anxious and uncertain.
Stories, always stories and questions, more and more and each one more revealing, or was it more distancing, than the next. What was it that drew her to him? What were these bags and barrels and boxes of questions he threw at her feet? He chastised her for judging experience before she had it. She did not like to be chastised, especially when he knew what he was talking about.
He told her she had stories as well. The truth would out, he said. Every lawyer knew that and was she not a lawyer? He recognizes her. When will she recognize herself?
Ah, but she knows that if she put the key to the lock of her thoughts, her longing, so many spirits and demons and lost maidens, pilgrims and angels would fill the room. She was afraid that the room could not hold them all and implode, showering splinters of the stories she told herself to get through the day into the unsuspecting world.
She simply said, we should go to dinner soon.
He: [Sunday 5 PM] After the workshop, he felt drained. It was not easy to listen, really listen to what is said and how it is said. More than that, it was hard to listen to what is not said, or to read the silences, the emotional nuances. He was good at that but not now. The tooth called out. Now he needed another aspirin and some topical. He wanted to thank her for the weekend. Even without the unexpected gift of her sexuality, she had been a gracious hostess. He wanted to take her out for a nice dinner and a little more Scotch, and a little talk about this and that.
He wanted to make sure that things were right between them, that she didn’t feel like he had taken advantage of her or the situation. The problem with sex was that afterwards, you have to own it or deny it. She had kept her distance during much of the day. Not looked his way, nor had the small conversations of Saturday as the work progressed. Perhaps he had kept some distance as well. He wanted to show her how much he appreciated her but made a point of not preferring her questions or attention to the other workshop participants. Before he offered any thanks, he felt like he needed just a wee nap. Just twenty minutes and then he could give her the time and attention, the practical advice that he had promised in the e-mail correspondence they had before he arrived.
She: [Sunday 2 PM] In the afternoon, she sat and regarded him seated in a room full of people she knew too well as he listened to their words and their technical problems and their thoughts about resolving them. She regarded him with his head held to the side, eyes closed, concentrating. She regarded him and wondered what went on behind those blue gray eyes. And she wondered if he was thinking of her.
She wondered if he was traveling back to last night the way she kept going back to a half-blush at the memory of their entanglement. She held herself back from that blush, afraid that she was just another “trophy”. That would be the worst thing she could imagine, to sleep with the hostess because you can.
He: [Sunday 1:00 AM] This was not at all what he expected. It was not the discovery of the pleasure of their bodies, but the sense of how right it felt, as if it was meant to be. In another time he might have enjoyed the sex and let it stand as a moment unto itself, as play, gift or intoxicated misjudgment. He had used that kind of logic in past liaisons that had been just as unexpected, one and done or the start of something more. The times casual intimacy became longer entanglements were always surprising and appreciated until they crashed on the rocks of time and distance. He was bad at long distance romance. So terrible in fact, he could metaphorically set the timer from first intimacy to last goodbye at just under 16 months.
He lay in the dark and considered the possibility that this was not a one-night stand in spite of its immediacy. It scared him. It thrilled him. It was too soon to say what had happened, what she felt, what he felt, loaded as he was with scotch and aspirin but he found himself open to the thrill and the fear. It was likely to throw off the rhythm he prided himself on bringing to the workshop in the morning and as such, would have to be countered.
She: [Saturday midnight] Some time before the natural outcome of wine and whispered confidences, they had been moving closer together on a couch in front a fire. All evening their gestures had mirrored each other. They shared take-out Chinese food from the same bowl. He told her that she was lovely and the moment came when he had just enough to drink for him to say that they had choices before them.
It took her by surprise. These days she was unsure of how much she stirred men. He said that the choice was hers: to make love or spend the night alone. She was put off by the idea that he would be OK either way. She wanted him to care that she would sleep with him. Would he say it? Why should he?
She went to her room. She stayed there for not quite a half hour before she opened his door. He was waiting for her. Perhaps he knew she would come but she did not want him to think less of her for coming. A little over an hour later, she returned to her room. She needed to sleep, perchance to dream a reason for her decision.
He: [Saturday 9:00 PM] She offered him good Chinese take out and wine before the fireplace. It was so classically romantic. He was prepared to ignore it. Keep this clean and business-like he thought. Somewhere along the line they shifted positions and the tray which was between them was shunted to the side. Now she sat leaning back into his shoulder. He could smell her hair and skin. He could not see the pale hazel of her eyes, the way they flickered, the little sideline glances or twinkles when she wanted to make a point. He was aware of the intimacy of the conversation. It had begun with a condensed version of their resumes but soon fell into questions and answers of family histories. They had little in common other than being well educated lapsed Catholics.
When the fire fell to embers, she didn’t get up to fuss at it like she had before. He could not ignore her or the situation. He needed to clarify what she wanted. He would have offered to speak what he wanted first if he only knew what it was. This was a moment when he thought he could be equally comfortable with yes means yes and no means no. Consent above all.
He did not know if she would be offended by the asking. He was prepared for no and to ask for her forgiveness if she was offended, but he couldn’t forgive himself for not asking. He was not at all sure he was prepared for the consequences of yes.
She: [Saturday 8:00 PM] They had gone in search of a bar that served McCallan 15-year-old single malt. It was one of his drugs of choice. She had no idea as yet what other vices served him or what, in this case, might serve herself. She usually didn’t miss a trick. She’s prided herself on this aspect of character but here with him she was completely oblivious to his courting, if that’s what he was doing. It wasn’t any form of courting that she would recognize although she wanted to.
He continued to regale her with stories of misadventure with each one more engaging as a measure of risks taken than the one before it. Each seemed to her to be another layer peeled off the onion that was his self or a distraction from his real self.
He was tempting her in a way that seemed to amuse him. And she rewarded him with her rapt attention. She wanted an adventure. Some of that desire was the McCallan, the rest was the product of her realization that she had grown too comfortable with her own life.
He: [Saturday 9:30 AM] The day had begun slowly, with him sitting on the deck reading the LA Times, sipping dark coffee, eating sourdough toast with honey.
Now as the participants arrived and she introduced them or took them aside for an embrace or exchange of words according to the nature of her relationship to them. He observed her interactions with some interest, made small talk and prepared for the work of the day. She was the perfect hostess, taking care of this or that without fuss and still conveying the impression that she had every guest’s undivided attention. He did not actually see her eat and wondered why she was working so hard. Was it for his sake or hers?
They began the work and he immediately sunk into the gestalt of group and technical process. He was neither lazy nor easily distracted. It was a mix of good theory reinforced by practical exercises and a sly reaffirming of basics they should have learned in graduate school. He was gracious, patient, and devoid of criticism of poorly thought-out arguments. They were a better group than many he had worked with and she was certainly the brightest of the lot.
As the day wore on, he found himself looking at her more often. Respect, curiosity, and on some level, he was rooting for her to say more. Then he caught himself not listening but watching the way she sat. Stop that, he said to himself. The gracious line of her leg as the short dress rode up her thigh when she leaned forward to make a point suggested that he would not.
When they finished, she sent him to the ocean in the company of her friends. It was good to walk after five hours of pacing no further than one end of the room to the other. It was good to smell the wet sand and watch day slide over the horizon. When he got back to the house, everything had been cleaned or put away. She asked what would be his pleasure. He had two thoughts but spoke wanting to sip a single malt. She had none at home and suggested they go to a bar he had passed on the beach.
She: [Saturday 8 AM] He had come to weekend at the beach bungalow she called home to teach what he had a reputation for being expert at. It was work he knew well and had done for years. He was there by her invitation, a professional on a mission, his, hers, and those others who had paid just enough to take seriously what was yet to be revealed. She had worked on setting this up for two months and if she had anything to do with it, it would be one of those weekends that changed lives.
He: [Friday 8:00 PM] As soon as he got in the car, he rolled down the window to smell the air. He was not ready to talk, not yet. He wanted to take this world in. Just a few moments of orientation, of breathing the warm air, sensing the landscape of early spring, listening to the sound of her voice, feeling her presence in the world. She seemed so familiar. Not in the “I’ve met you before” way, but in the way that meat recognizes salt – complimentary, instinctive. Yet she seemed nervous as if she wanted to or had to impress him. He ignored that and was content to settle in the seat, accepting her offer to have something to eat at the house.
When they arrived at her house, which would also be the workshop space, he was pleased. It was an open plan with decks fore and aft. The bedroom she showed him was a little disconcerting with stuffed animals piled everywhere. He made a joke that this cute clutter was what he disliked about B&B’s. She moved stuffed bears into the closet. He should have felt bad but he was glad to have them gone.
They went to the kitchen to eat some good bread with a sharp cheese and Black Forest ham. There were orange slices, he assumed were picked from the tree in the back yard. They drank a robust Spanish red wine. She didn’t really eat as much as make sure he ate while she answered his questions about who would be participating. He was fading.
The tooth was acting up. He wanted another aspirin, more topical anesthetic. He did not mention the tooth to her. Why bother? Why should he let his pain interfere? He’d just tough it out. She sensed the shift of mood and sent him off to bed. It was still early Pacific time but as he had started the day in Washington, DC, late enough to justify fatigue.
She: [Friday 7:30 PM] She had been standing at the foot of the escalator scanning the passengers when she saw him. Long black coat, wide brimmed hat, shoulder bag and what looked to be a hundred-year-old scuffed suitcase without wheels. Picking him up from the airport would be the first of a weekend of little things that she wanted to do well. It was more than social; it was a chance for her to help reposition herself with her peers. She was more than a competent attorney. Hosting a workshop meant she had connections and initiative.
Their eyes meet, his face lit up, he greeted her with a wry smile, “I knew I’d recognize you.”
He: [Friday 7:10 PM] It had been one of those flights where he was focused on something gone wrong. The tooth had lost the crown that morning. He was eating oatmeal at the hotel when he heard a crack and felt himself swallow something that was not mush. It did not hurt then but it bothered him now. The pain was a small intermittent presence that would not recede into the background except when he squeezed out an application of topical anesthetic followed by a couple of what he thought was aspirin he found in his shoulder bag. Where were the serious drugs when he needed them?
This was not what he wanted. He was looking forward to this weekend. He wanted time in the California sun. He wanted to watch the sun set over the Pacific after doing a good day’s work. He always wanted to do good work and sometimes he even managed to do so when everything around him was going wrong. This might just have to be one of those times.