BECAUSE SHE HAD NOTHING else to do with either her hands or her mouth, when Niklas Flimm asked Anna if she wanted another drink, she said, Yes, please. A half minute later, Anna held a fresh glass of wine. That second glass of wine turned into a third. And three glasses of wine turned into a whiskey and by then Anna was drunk.
Anna and Niklas were still on the patio. Bruno was inside, drinking and telling stories to his friends. Edith looked through the glass back door occasionally, Anna assumed, to make sure that Niklas wasn’t trying to pick her up as well. She tried to assure Edith with her body language that was in no way possible. Niklas and Anna were running out of things to say. “So Edith is good friend?” he asked.
When drunk, Anna’s tact and civil elegance were the first of her social skills to flee. They were usually replaced with the same kind of gadabout forthrightness Edith was known for. Anna wore a sloppy, rickety grin. “What I heard is that Edith is your good friend!” Her drunkenness made her irrepressible.
Niklas smiled with slightly narrowing eyes. “She tells you.” His voice was even. He wasn’t demoralized. She hadn’t disconcerted him.
“Don’t worry,” Anna was quick to add. “I’ll keep your secret. I’ll keep it.”
“I’m not worry.”
Past that, Anna had nothing to add. They stood there a minute longer in silence. Anna spoke. “I’m going inside. It was nice talking to you.” Anna slurred her words. The tipsy was catching up to her. She left Niklas alone on the patio.
Anna wasn’t so drunk that she couldn’t walk straight. She walked just fine. Finer than usual, in fact. The alcohol had given her swagger; with every forward step she ticked her hips side to side like a clock’s pendulum and wondered who, if anyone, watched her as she passed. In the Hammers’ bathroom, she glossed her lips and finger curled the strands of hair that had worked their way loose from the clip. She gazed into her own eyes like a lover would. I look glassy and mischievous. Somewhere between the whiskey and the wine, a switch had flipped.
When she left the bathroom, she sidled up to Bruno and put a hand on his shoulder. Bruno looked up, saw that it was Anna, then returned his attention to the conversation. Anna sat on the arm of the chair in which he was sitting and leaned into him and whispered in his ear. “Let’s go home and fuck.”
Bruno looked to her once more. He chortled. “I think you’re drunk.”
Anna’s smile was cagey. “I am. Let’s go home and fuck anyway.”
A handful of seconds ticked past during which Bruno considered her proposition. He locked his eyes on hers. How long had it been? A month? Two? Anna made so much love of late that she couldn’t keep track. Bruno’s assent was silent.
“Let’s go,” Anna said.
“DO YOU KNOW THE German word Sehnsucht?” Anna shook her head no. “It means disconsolate longing. It’s that hole in your heart out of which all hope leaks.” Anna became queasy with dread. Doktor Messerli sensed this. “Anna,” she consoled, “it only feels hopeless. It doesn’t have to be.”
Doesn’t it? Anna answered silently.
BRUNO AND ANNA BADE slapdash goodbyes to Edith and Otto and all the other guests and drove home quickly. Anna let her hand glide up her husband’s thigh. Bruno made a hard, hot groan. Anna bit his ear, sucked the lobe. I want you to fuck my mouth, she said. Fuck my mouth then shove your cock in my ass. Bruno kept his eyes to the road but sped up all the same. I want you to scrub my * with your face, Bruno. I want you to suck on my clit until it’s as fat as a cherry. When they got to the house he pulled in fast and parked the car at a crooked angle. This was something he never did, too regimented and square cornered he was. They began undressing before they even fully stepped inside. Jackets were abandoned in the boot room. Anna cast her shoes and dress aside in the entryway. Bruno’s shirt fell away in the hall. There, Bruno grabbed Anna’s arm above the elbow and pulled her roughly into the bedroom behind him.