“Oh, that’s nothing,” she said, unmoved by the sight of her own blood. “You just wait.” She looked at me thoughtfully. “I’m a bleeder.”
I’d grown used to the heady, tainting power of our lovemaking, our biochemical froth and forgivable expressions of joy and despair. But blood carried some unnerving element of permanence I hadn’t considered. She didn’t seem bothered by having shared it. She thanked me for cleaning her, and I felt dismissed, and tossed the washcloth on the floor. She put her hand over her heart, with my bracelet on her wrist. “I have never in my entire life been treated this well by anyone. Never been this well loved, until now, by you.” She studied me with renewed intensity. I felt puzzled over and adored. I’d forgotten the feeling of this scrutiny, of being marveled at by another living being. It had been a long time since anyone had looked at me that way. I remembered that look from my mother.
“You’re gifted.” Now came the pity.
“It’s my blessing.”
“But you never get it at home.”
“It’s also my curse.”
“Let’s call it a skill.”
“A knack.”
“If you could package it and sell it, you’d make a fortune.”
“Okay.”
“There are so many women I know who could use it.” She tried to pull me to her, but I resisted, and instead mentioned price points, naming my services and dividing them into grades, Standard, Elite, and Concierge class, for the discerning lovelorn lady. I might’ve been having fun to combat the choking power of her arrogance, or maybe I meant to engender more pity, or maybe I wanted to remind her of the uselessness of her dough, that financial remuneration devalued our bond.
“Hopefully my new customers will pay a little better.”
“Stop it.”
“You started it.”
“Come here,” she said, exhausted.
“You’d dress me like a gigolo and sell me to your friends.”
She pulled me to her. “We were both joking,” she said.
I lay there, depressed as hell, with my head between her boobs, and tried to put a value on the services I’d provided to her, the sacrifices I’d made, like a common-law spouse, significant contributions to her well-being, which now seemed beyond measure, like that dough of hers, which fit no human scale, or was scaled to all humanity.
She yawned, then started snoring loudly like she was about to suffocate herself. I figured it was the drugs, and couldn’t even pretend to sleep until her breathing changed, and crawled out from under her and into the other twin bed, and lay there.
I wanted to get paid. She had enough money for a thousand jerkoffs. A basic level of support, half a million a year, was nothing, a weekend island rental. Azamanian’s billions were like a weather phenomenon that forced the natural world into contortions, turned dune scrub into rarefied architecture and putting greens. His crazy blown-out beach house made money sexy or scary but not real. But the proximity to her dough had worn me down, whatever protection I’d had from it. She loved me, but how much? By now Robin would’ve received an email alert of our zero balance. Or maybe they didn’t send them out on weekends. We could’ve transferred funds from our savings account, but we didn’t have a savings account. I’d broken our trust, which I’d only be destroying again through my artwork, by using my indiscretion as a source of inspiration. I couldn’t stand it. I had goals and dreams. How long would I have to wait to make them real? For now, though, I needed money from my brother, or half from him and half from Robin’s dad, right away, this week, for Kaya’s preschool. There were other bills I couldn’t let myself think about, but that one had to be paid. I told myself it would be okay. Amy wouldn’t let me starve. She’d never let me suffer. Then I remembered that she’d offered some kind of support, up in her closet in Connecticut, while I lay on the floor with my pants down, and I’d told her to shove it.
Sunday morning we waited in line for coffee, sniffing milk containers, listening as Dennis Fleigel gave Mohammad Khan a cost-benefit analysis of last night’s fundraiser. Weather had moved in off the ocean and sat over us like wet gray wool. Roberta stumbled through the fog in dark sunglasses and ducked under a tent flap. Alicia Hernandez Roulet reached past me for milk, trailed by her little goblin, and I bent over to scratch his belly. The blood rushed to my head, and I almost fell down. I felt sick, but also solid, dense, and concentrated, jacked with endorphins from screwing and falling in love. I stroked his fur, girded by this small task, sensing a past-life kinship, and dropped to my knees and spoke to him.
On the planet where we came from, you were free to love and be loved. On that planet, the system didn’t beat you into submission. You could lie on your back with your weenie out, and no one stopped you. I read his name tag. Rabies on one side, Piccolo on the other. I felt happy, and a little insane, but I could do whatever I wanted, and whispered in his ear that his real name was Bubbles, and sang him the inchworm song, which was one of Beanie’s favorites. The two of them were about the same size and length. I picked him up and cradled him and called him my child, my son. There were black spots on his wet pink tongue. He had his lipstick out. So much love to give.
I understood him, because I’d considered hanging myself just last night—and in that liminal space had received a kind of grace. I didn’t want to hurt myself anymore. My self-destructive urges had been replaced by a rush of pity for the seven billion assholes of earth, even Robin, maybe her most of all, out there on the straight and narrow, going it alone. I thought again of my hand in Amy’s hair, her mouth before we kissed. Sex, afterglow, possession, elation. I’d write a happy story of transformation, growth, and forgiveness, drawn without inflection or ambivalence. It would be easy to do. The work would go quickly. My pages would look schematic. I’d crank out an entire book in six months, zip zip. My hero would thrive.
Early this morning the Barn had rattled in the wind, blowing curtains. A mist fell through the skylight, dripping onto our blankets. I climbed back into her twin bed, and we listened to the soothing tap upon the roof, and talked the way we had over email, rambling away in gravelly voices about our first summer jobs, the pickup truck I drove delivering auto parts, the neighbor she babysat for, their kitchen AM radio and the songs it played that summer, catechism class, brushing her grandmother’s honey-blond wig. I loved lying there. We’d slept naked, and our legs were cool and smooth. Her arm had started to throb but not too badly. I reminded her of a family trip she’d once told me about, it took place thirty years ago, the parents and kids in one tent in some state park on the ocean, how it rained all weekend and her father sang in his Irish tenor and they slept in a puddle and were happy.