He kept his eyes on mine. I had an impulse to be shy, to cover, but he shook his head slightly, just a fraction of a movement, and I let myself sink more deeply into his lap.
He pulled the robe apart slowly, slowly, inch by inch, and his hands touched only the cloth. He bent down to kiss my lips again, then he opened the robe a tiny bit more. I had difficulty remaining still. Lightly, he put his fingers on the skin of my rib cage, against my belly, on my hip. He moved as if unwrapping something valuable, something he could not rush to see. My body rose to his fingers, retreated, rose again. He bent periodically to kiss me, but he always pulled back, opening the robe farther, his hands growing more solid on my skin. I felt myself opening to him. As absurd as it sounded in my own head, I was the robe, I was being opened, and he continued to move his hands over me, touching my skin lightly and moving on. He touched my nipples carefully, gently, and I had a difficult time staying still. But he kissed me and took both my wrists in his hand, and he pulled my arms above my head. I felt like an instrument spread on his lap, a thing to be played and used and valued. And then he had difficulty containing himself, because he pulled my arms higher and tighter over my head, and he slipped his other hand down between my legs, and I was ready for him, waiting for him, and he looked at me as if to say, Yes, now, this part is mine now, and I shivered and tried to raise up to kiss him, and that was when he gathered me up and carried me to the bed.
23
Flesh. His body on mine.
His lips on mine, slowly, softly, then more urgently. The white curtains at the hotel windows tucking into the room for an instant, breathing with us, then releasing, letting the curtains blossom and wave into the late-afternoon light. The smells of the hotel garden reaching us only in our silences, when our senses clear for a moment before he moves against me, stirring everything, everything important, and we kiss, and kiss again, and it is sex, gloriously sex, but not as I have known it, not exactly, not as sweet and rounded and filled with the earthy sting that I cannot know will take me until it does.
Jack. My Jack. His body beautiful, and mine white and soft beside his, around his, my legs over his waist, his force driving deeper and deeper into the bed, into me, then other ways, more lewd, more edge, more blood seeping into my skin, a wild, crazed feeling, balanced only by the return to his lips, his lips always safe and thrilling, and we look into each other’s eyes—a stupid, absurd cliché—but what else can we do? It is the afternoon in Berlin, and all the world is quiet and the curtains continue to lift and fall, maybe rain coming, and we stay a long time, him inside me, deep, deep, not moving, not doing anything but kissing in this bed that floats in the island of Vermeer light. I kiss him and hold him, and for a long time we do not speak, do not try to, and then it builds again, becomes naughty and wonderful, becomes exploration and tongue and fingers and inexpressible surges. I want him to turn me inside out, to take me, every inch, but to give something back, something he has for me.
His body is perfect. Perfect. It is strong and long and fine, and he moves it gracefully; there are no gaps, no moments where skin leaves skin, and when his moment comes, when he is ready, he puts his eyes on mine and we do not glance away, do not surrender anything until he can no longer stand it, and I kiss him, pull him deeper, and then the white curtains flap harder and the breeze from the garden comes again to find us. I can barely keep from crying because if this is real, if one particle is real, then I am a dead pup, I am lost, I am so hopelessly gone that nothing can save me.
*
“I had sex with you, and I don’t even know your last name.”
“That’s excellent. You should definitely slut-shame yourself.”
“Do you have a bad name? Is that why you’re keeping it from me?”
“How do you mean, bad?”
“Like, I don’t know, Pancake or something.”
“You think my name is Jack Pancake?”
I kissed his shoulder to hide my smile. It was a perfect moment. The wind had risen and now pushed against the hotel. We lay under a beautiful white down comforter, and the sheets glimmered white, contrasted as they were against the dark wood of the bed and bureaus. Jack’s body felt warm, and everything felt lazy and quiet and smooth.
“Quiller-Couch,” Jack whispered into my hair. “That’s my name.”
“That’s not your real name.”
“Yes, it is. I promise it is. I know how strange it sounds.”
I pushed myself up and looked at him. He had his eyes closed. I couldn’t read him.
“Your name is Jack Quiller-Couch? You’re making that up, Jack. That’s impossible.”
“I am not making that up. It’s really my name.”
“Let me see your wallet. I want to check your license.”
“You can call me Jack Vermont if you prefer. Or Jack Pancake.”
“So some woman, someday, is going to have the option of keeping her own name or becoming Mrs. Quiller-Couch. I think we can guess how that will go.”
“It’s a perfectly fine name. My mother kept her name, Quiller, and hyphenated it with my dad’s name, Couch. So I’m Quiller-Couch.”
“That’s just nutty. Jack Quiller-Couch. You sound like a pirate or something. Or like a British dessert.”
“I could change it to Jack Pancake.”
“Maybe Jack Vermont. I like that.”
He kissed me and pulled me closer.
“Jack Quiller-Couch. That’s going to require some getting used to. I’m not sure I even believe you. Are you joking right now?”
“I think it’s too much last name for a simple first name. That’s the problem. It’s out of balance. I like your name better. Heather Mulgrew. What’s your middle name?”
“Christine. Mulgrew always sounded to me like a mushroom you find in your basement. Oh, there’s a Mulgrew.”
“You’re very strange. Heather Christine Mulgrew. I like it. So when we get married, you would be Heather Christine Mulgrew Quiller-Couch. You would be your own law firm.”
“We’re getting married now, are we? And I’m taking your name? It’s all established?”
“It’s inevitable.”
“Do you simply say these things for effect? It’s a bad habit. It’s a habit you should denounce.”
“I don’t think you denounce a habit.”
“What do you denounce?”
“Satan, I think.”
He rolled me to one side and spooned me. His breath tickled my ear. I felt his body jump once as it relaxed into near sleep. For a long time, I watched the curtains move with the wind. This was Jack, I told myself. Jack Quiller-Couch. And we had met on a train and had our first kiss on the station platform, and now we had made love, and we were in Berlin, and it was all too fast, too easy to believe entirely, and I had driven a sports car over one hundred miles an hour, and now this lovely man held me and dozed, and I told myself I should remember this moment. I should trap it somehow, because someday I would be old and wrinkly and I might sit in the sun and remember Jack in this white, white bed, and the pleasure we had, and the taste of the Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie, and his body covering mine like a tree growing around a stone.