Worse, his big splash had caused a toddler to cry. The child’s mother glared, the bawling, red-faced boy fastened to her hip. Billy raised his hand apologetically. “Sorry.” The woman turned her back, an indignant swing to her water-beaded shoulders, and trudged to the other side of the pool, the boy still squawking and staring back at Billy. Billy brought his hands together and pushed down into the water.
He reached the deep end and burst through the surface, gasping. The chlorine burned his eyes. Next time he would wear goggles. His reflection in the rearview that sunny, blinding day came back, the fat of his face bubbling over the arms of his sunglasses and drawing ever more attention to his meaty head. The added humiliation of goggles hardly seemed to matter here, though, when he was already letting everyone see so much of his outsides. The two men he’d recognized in the changing room swam laps nearby, but he continued to ignore them. He touched the wall of the pool, turned around, and started back toward the opposite end, thinking, Forty pounds, thinking, Michael.
He tired after only three laps. He tried to continue, but his lungs felt as if they would burst, his rib cage as if it would collapse. Get up, he told himself, echoing his father’s herding of the cows. If he could only make six laps today, and next time build from there. His arms sliced the water and his legs kicked. He told himself he would drown if he didn’t go on, he would boil in a vat of oil, but he couldn’t muster another stroke. He stopped mid-pool and grabbed the blue lane rope, struggling to tame his breathing. Earlier, on the drive into town, he’d noticed several crows on the telephone wires. The birds had swayed on first landing, as if they would fall, but they held on, their claws curled around the wire. His hand tightened on the lane rope, holding on until he’d recovered his breath and the painful tightness in his chest eased. Then he pushed off, finishing the lap.
The rest of the week, he returned to the swimming pool in the evenings, straight after work. He continued to see faces he recognized, but thankfully didn’t run into anyone he knew well enough to have to stop and chat while standing in all his inglorious flesh. Every time he tired and thought he couldn’t continue, he pressed on, squeezing the last possible lap out of himself. By Friday, he’d lost another three pounds. Forty-three pounds gone. It would never get old, this kind of ecstatic descent.
*
One night in bed, Billy jerked up from the pillow, and dropped back down. Tricia’s face swam above him, concerned. She pressed her hand to his cheek, her first tenderness toward him in so long. “Relax, it’s over.”
His thumb and finger rubbed hard at his eyes. “Michael was a boy and he went missing. I couldn’t find him—”
“Shush, it’s okay.” Her hand remained on his face.
He remembered the first time he’d seen her, in the village church, at their friends’ wedding. She was wearing a short, floral dress and a little cerise cardigan, her hair so blond, her eyes so blue, and a smile that could heal wounds. It was love, and heartbreak, at first sight. No way, he’d thought, a girl like that would have anything to do with a lump like me.
She was still leaning over him on the bed. His fingers reached for her hair, its past luster gone. He lifted several dull locks, and moved his fingers down their shaft, letting each strand fall slowly away. Their eyes searched each other. His hand slid to the back of her neck and eased her face toward him. They kissed. He couldn’t remember the last time he had kissed her full on the mouth. She pulled away.
Just as he thought she would turn on her side and get back to the business of sleep, she dipped her head again and kissed him. He struggled to rise up toward her, part lifting, part rolling himself, and fell against her. “Sorry.” She was beneath him now and he rushed his lips back to hers. His hand slid from her neck and down her front to her small, soft breast. He caressed her, reverently, greedily, like rubbing a magic lamp. When he worked her erect nipple between his thumb and fingers, she made a little sound that he hoped was pleasure.
Oh, Tricia. He’d yearned for her for so long, this hardly seemed real. He’d thought they’d never get back here, never get back to the way they used to be together. He pushed aside the nightdress covering her soft skin and lowered his lips to her hard nipple. As he sucked, her hand rubbed the back of his head and her body arched against him. With a grunt, he drew up his knee as high as he could and straddled her thigh. His resurrected, burning flame of a penis humped against her, and in an unstoppable burst, he ejaculated.
With a soft cry, she pushed out from beneath the pin of his leg and torso and hurried to the bathroom.
He listened to the long run of water, imagined her wiping hard at herself.
When she returned to bed, she turned her back to him.
“I’m sorry, it’s been so long,” he said.
“It’s okay.”
He touched his hand to her shoulder, trying to turn her toward him. “We’re not finished. I want to take care of you, too.”