A Madness Most Discreet

(in circulation)

i

Even with his heart still mending, Thomas Colter knew life’s ultimate voyage was love.
He was returning home after a week in a Paris less haunted than he had feared, and though he had thought of her he hadn’t thought only of her and was grateful again for Cleo awaiting him on Long Island. At the Arc de Triomphe he took a bus to the airport where in poor French he greeted the woman checking his ticket at the gate, walked the brief tunnel to the plane, then repeated the same phrase with the same poor inflections to the flight attendant. Though he spoke badly despite his many visits, he understood what he heard and read, and usually Parisians were appreciative and amused at his French, and so he managed comfortably. He hoisted his black leather duffle bag to his shoulder and moved down the aisle through the First-Class cabin.
After a youth spent playing restless, energetic sports he remained in good condition and appeared a young forty-four aided by an optimism inherited from his mother whom he believed would most likely outlive him. He wore a navy-blue linen suit, a white cotton shirt with no tie, brown lace-up shoe-boots recently purchased in San Germaine, and no jewelry save for a quiet, expensive watch with Roman numerals that did nothing but tell time. He continued through the main cabin to the rear, and after pressing the duffle into an overhead bin, he excused himself to the passenger behind him and smiled shyly which he knew people liked and perhaps he did to excess. He had a window seat and was grateful the one beside him was empty, and when the plane ascended he muttered a small prayer for his safety which he believed didn’t matter to God anyway. He gazed at the countryside below where rectangles and squares in various colors and sizes reminded him of a Picasso cubist painting ever since he’d read that by Gertrude Stein. The airplane banked and the window filled with a cloud-white sky while the woman in First-Class finally caught her breath from the happiest shock of her life.
Her name was Laura Vernéy, and watching Tom board the plane–even before that, from his voice as he greeted the flight attendant— she felt her heartbeat race and for an instant had vertigo. She sat back in the seat, astonished, then immediately turned away, to her child beside her as Tom moved down the aisle and she felt the physical aura of him closely, diminish, and disappear, then smiled at the workings of a mysterious and beneficent fate.
She traveled with her ten-year-old son who easily slipped from English to French in their affectionate conversation. Michel had been born in Manhattan where he spent the first eight years of his life, and so in France he was grudgingly popular for knowing America so well. His mother had banking conferences in the city where she’d visit friends and then her sister and Michel’s cousins upstate, and though she had hoped for a nap once the plane reached cruising altitude—her previous few days in Paris had been quite hectic—seeing Tom left her exhilarated and she shook her head to clear it so she might better focus on the moment which still amazed her.
Drinks were served in First-Class and soon a meal, but before that Laura entered the lavatory where she touched up her make-up, fluffed her high-lighted blond curls, dabbed her neck with perfume, then took a piece of chewing gum. She was pretty, fair-skinned, her blue eyes lively, with delicate hands and feet. She dressed tastefully expensive, wore a Cartier love bracelet her husband Jean-Louis gave after the birth of their son, several rings with gemstones, and small diamond earrings. Seeing that Michel was comfortable, she told him, “Je reviens tout de suite, Cheri,” then passed through the curtain into the main cabin.
Vaguely aloof, she appeared quite calm though her heart fluttered rapidly as her eyes, searching and expectant, ran along every row. When Tom spotted her his heart flew so forcefully against his ribs he was propelled from the seat; attracted by his motion, she found him as a thrill raced through her body and she looked away a moment. As she drew nearer she hesitated, then his arms opened and she settled into his embrace while losing a breath. Her legs felt weak, and if he’d not held her she might’ve toppled. She felt the front of him warm and alive against her, felt the wide sheets of muscle in his back, and that he trembled.
“Tom,” she whispered, “is it really you?”
       She released him but his hold tightened slightly. She remained in his arms another moment as he simmered in waves all the more dreamy amid the scent of her perfume. At last they separated, each mildly embarrassed and unable to gaze into the other’s eyes.
Uncomfortable showing affection in public Laura cast a self-conscious glance at oblivious passengers. With a gentle tug Tom led her from the aisle and backed into the seat near the window while she folded herself excitedly into the seat beside him.
“Have you been in Paris?” she asked. “Why didn’t you let me know? I’ve been calling you for days to say I was coming to New York. Did you stay at Remy’s?” but he was unable to answer her flurry of questions while taking all of her in, then she added urgently, “Tom, I’ve been in Paris too.”
For a moment they both wavered on this another missed chance numbering more than either of them cared remembering.
“Tom,” she cried with weak laughter, then enclosed his hand in both of hers, “it’s so good seeing you.”
His eyes had not left her since they sat down. He was still bewildered and wanted to kiss her once deeply if only to relieve the whirlwind in his heart.
“You look beautiful,” he told her.
She lowered her gaze to his hand, her fingertips stroking the soft hair along his wrist. She knew his eyes remained on her because she could feel the heat of them, and this both embarrassed and thrilled her.
“You look wonderful too,” she at last replied, raising her eyes to his. “You haven’t changed at all,” then she leaned closer and asked, “Have you missed me?”
Her question nearly took the heart out of him. He could find no response other than the simple truth which merely grazed a longing once so unbearable there were times he’d stop whatever he was doing, close his eyes and wait for the internal howl to pass.
“Yes,” he replied.
She asked why he’d been in Paris and he told her how Remy had arranged a book launch for the French edition of his new novel loosely based on the artists’ model who appears in many statues across New York City. Only recently and after years had he attained some success but coming late it had not spoiled him since he’d already had a conception of himself long before. After a brief pause, he added, “He asked about you.”
“What did you say?”
       Tom shrugged, then with a hopeless laugh, “I didn’t have much to tell.”
His reply backed them into a silence all the more conflicting for Laura who always controlled the terms of their relationship even down to a phone call.  
“Tom,” she said while sitting upright and patting his arm, “Michel is with me. After dinner there’s the movie, and then I think he’ll sleep. I’ll come back then.” She leaned forward so that her cheek touched his, whispering, “This is wonderful,” and pressed his hand tightly in hers. After a contented breath she rose with him back into the aisle, bit her lower lip with shy excitement, then moved quickly away as Tom watched the bobbing coils of her hair, her back tapering to her waist, and the shifting, skirt-draped swells of her bottom.
She returned to her son with her heart sparkling and troubled. She knew Tom was  involved with a woman on Long Island where he’d bought a cottage the year before but Laura refused to admit she was jealous. When leaving New York three years ago she knew he’d find other women if only to satisfy some physical need but their love would never significantly change. She was convinced they would see each other several times a year and for the rest of their lives, and for a time it was just as she imagined with her infrequent trips to New York and his to Paris. But eventually the distance and complications separating them became too arduous. She had felt the gradual loss of him and an intermittent, dull ache lessening only slightly with time, but her belief that they’d forever remain lovers never completely extinguished and was confirmed the instant he boarded the plane.
He looked wonderful though she lied saying he hadn’t changed; his hair had grayed some and thin lines at the edges of his eyes never vanished completely once his smile had. But other than that he looked the same, and in her arms he felt still trim and strong. Already she planned ways to meet in New York, taking it absolutely for granted that he’d want to see her too, never considering that another woman may prevent it since another woman never had before or at least not for long. As darkness filled each cabin window, Laura closed her eyes and imagined once again making love with the only man she’d ever thought of as mon grand amour.

ii

The main cabin darkened but for a few thin beams from overhead reading lights, the sound of the jet engines muffled and monotonous. Unable to read with his mind on Laura, Tom waited in the dark quietly marveling at how the ways of love were always far more unpredictable than anything he could have imagined. But he should have known; a man could leave a spot, walk in one direction and eventually end where he began. He struggled to keep the rising image of her nakedness brief and unfocused, but the scent of her perfume lingered, calling up recollections of a passion he knew even then would never be equaled—he had once seduced a woman simply for wearing the same perfume, then trudged home depressed by the hollow sex despite the ‘Aliage’ which he’d secretly sprayed on his handkerchief before leaving.
“Tom,” she whispered as she slipped into the empty seat beside him. “Are you awake? This will refresh you.”
She had brought two plastic drinking glasses and the complimentary Demi of champagne served in First-Class. Tom held the glasses as she poured, then she nestled deeper into the cushion and leaned against him.
“To us,” she whispered, and after each took a long, thin sip, she said hushed and excited, “I still can’t believe it’s you. You must be very happy. You’re a successful writer now.
“Oh, it’s not that. I—”
“And you bought a place in the Hamptons?”
“A little cottage along the bay but—"
“And you kept your apartment? You could probably sell it now for a small fortune.”
He shifted in the shy uncertainty that often charmed her.
“I love New York,” he finally said, almost apologetically, “and the place is so comfortable and cheap.”
“And filled with sweet memories?” she asked mischievously, taking his arm and nudging closer.
“Overflowing,” he said though in fact the apartment had been so haunted once Laura returned to Europe that he considered moving but instead bought a new bed and two sets of sheets, knowing that nowhere on Earth would ever purge him of Laura Vernéy.
“Tom,” she declared, gathering her resolve and wetting her lips, “won’t you be staying in town a few days?”
From the moment he saw her walking towards him along the aisle he knew with a kind of pleasure and dread that they will make love again and even now regretted his inevitable unfaithfulness to Cleo.
“Stay Tom,” she whispered. “A few days. Besides, I miss that old place.”
She put her head on his shoulder, closed her eyes and tightened her fingers around his.
He felt the curls of her hair on his cheek, her body down his arm, petted her hand faintly with his thumb; after a few moments her fingers quivered and her breath turned softly audible, and there was the scent of her perfume. He’d have been content if New York were still many more hours away and remembered the image of the legless bird in Tennessee Williams’ Orpheus Descending that touches Earth only at its death.
“Will you stay?” she asked sleepily as she pressed his arm tight to herself.
“Yes,” he whispered, then her lips reached for his and they kissed softly, simply lips touching before kissing again only longer, stirring their blood. She opened her eyes before he opened his for she always loved how he looked after kissing her.
“Tom, I must go,” she said quietly, and he could’ve never count how many times she’d said to him those exact words. “I don’t want Michel to wake and find me gone,” then kissed him again quickly before rising in the aisle and saying excitedly, “See you soon” before moving from him into the darkness.
He didn’t see Laura for the rest of the flight, and as the plane began its descent Tom gazed through the window at Manhattan below: the twin, glimmering shafts of The World Trade Center, streetlights and offices and apartment windows like tiny, bright dots on black velvet, the Empire State Building a dark shaft with its few top floors lit castle-like before the city halted abruptly at the immense, black rectangle of Central Park. Never did he tire of gazing at his city to which, though never reluctant to leave, he always happily returned, then remembered to throw a quick “thank you God” to the ceiling after a safe landing. He was one of the last to deplane and considered helping Laura at baggage claim and to a taxi but feared his own awkwardness around her child who may suspect something even though still too young to know what to suspect.
“Manhattan,” Tom said to the taxi driver, “and please take the Williamsburg Bridge,” then he settled into the ride while imagining Laura probably heading for Monique’s on the Upper East Side. He could see the string of lights along the bridge now, and after crossing the black East River below and rattling along Delancey Street, the taxi pulled to the curb at First Avenue and First Street. He tipping excessively, then stepped into the mild May night and walked to his apartment down the block. Soft Latin music from a window drifted above bottle caps and parked cars and children playing kick-the-can in a hazy pool of light thrown by the streetlamp. In awkward Spanish Tom politely greeted an old couple in lounge chairs beside a stoop, and they politely greeted him. Though no longer a curiosity, he remained a source of mild amusement to some of his neighbors when he jogged at odd hours before jogging became popular and occasionally spoke in formal Spanish acquired from reading Garcia Lorca and spiced with elegant phrases learned during a brief affair with an Ecuadorian, her long black hair surrounding him, tent-like, as she sat astride him during sex and breathlessly whispered, “mi jaca valerosa.”
His five-floor walk-up of cranberry-colored bricks with a black fire escape bolted to its exterior had a stoop to the front door. After one flight up the dim hallway stairs and fumbling with a set of keys, Tom entered his dark kitchen with a view of the city through two windows. After a U-turn to his left, he passed through a doorway into a narrow room, dropped his duffle bag and flicked on a desk-lamp that cast a soft glow over two weeks’ mail neatly across the desk. One wall of the room was completely covered with bookshelves, the desk and a small sofa along the opposite wall with an imitation Persian rug on the dark wood floor. He sighed contentedly when the telephone rang; he told himself this couldn’t be Laura while thinking of the million times he answered hoping it was. But Mrs. Parisi next door was making sure it was him that she heard through the thin walls.
“Bona notti, Sonny Boy,” and she hung up clumsily.
At the telephone he dialed Cleo on Long Island, waited several rings while sitting in the padded, swivel desk chair and unlacing his new shoe-boots. “Hey,” he said through a smile, then “Yes” and listened a moment. “Good but there’s no place like home” and nearly clicked his new heels. They talked with easy, affectionate banter until he explained how he needed to stay in town a few days, realizing unhappily this was the first lie he’d ever told her
“No don’t come in,” he said so emphatically it silenced them both. He stumbled through explanations about jet lag and matters with his agent but promising to see her very soon. He listened another moment, then said, “I love you too,” before hanging up the phone but already immersed again in complications and deceits because of Laura Vernéy, then decided to see his agent after all to eliminate the previous lie.
He used the water closet, then pulled the chain for the toilet to flush with a brief roar. He poured a glass of Bushmill from a bottle in the cupboard, found ice in the old refrigerator’s freezer in need of defrosting, glanced with disinterest through the mail on his desk—“No checks,” he said as Mayor Jimmy Walker had done—then passed through the dark bedroom where a street-lamp threw a pattern of the window-frame across his queen-size bed. After unlocking the window he climbed out to the fire escape before settling into a hammock, took a long sip from the glass, then after a few moments relented to memories of a tortured, cherished time he’d often genuinely hoped had ended. A taxi stopped at the corner of Second Avenue and he remembered how long after Laura returned to Europe he still half-expected she’d step to the curb.
He didn’t know when she’d call and part of him hoped she didn’t. If they met again, he decided it must be in the park or a café. Now that he’d adjusted to seeing her on the plane his balance returned and he was determined to remain faithful to Cleo, knowing the consequences infidility caused even undetected. He’d met her months after he felt disentangled from Laura and never wanted the intrigue and guilt to start again regardless of the pleasure when in bed with her which probably couldn’t match his memory of it anyway.
While swaying in the hammock—the dull, infrequent yearning for her now growing stronger—he wondered if her flesh was ever so soft, why their love-making so splendid, that she really was the most beautiful between her thighs; after one furious gamahuching of her he whispered a daffy declaration of eternal love simply because she was so delicious there. He considered that by now his imagination had likely heightened everything about her and thought of taking her to bed just to break the spell with actuality, then wondered if he wasn’t covering the reality with another illusion, that what he’d found with her really was that remarkable else why would he have endured the situation so long? As he finished the whiskey, his mind filled with visions of her pale, fragrant throat, the feel of her beneath him, longed for the taste of her, then his mouth opened slightly from his labored breath.
He slept restlessly, waking at dawn but remaining in bed with an erection and prolonged, troubled sleep with images of Laura beside him though she didn’t look like her and even in the dream Tom refused believing it was. He rose from bed feeling a familiar heaviness in his spirit he’d not experienced for a long time and knew the best thing was to shower, have breakfast, then catch the first train to Long Island, thus saving himself the considerable emotional cost from seeing Laura Vernéy.

iii

Until seeing Tom in the plane Laura hadn’t been eager about this trip to New York. Business matters required it and she did want to see Monique as well as her sister and nephews upstate, but Laura never much liked the city except for Fifth Avenue, a few shops in Soho, and certain restaurants, the rest of the Manhattan loud, dirty, and especially rude compared to Essex where she was raised and particularly now after she, her husband and child had moved to Provence two years ago. Then too, she had a characteristically European superiority to America which she considered a country with little culture and obsessed with materialism, sports, and bad food.
But now she was excited to be here, and though initially astonished when Tom boarded the plane it only confirmed her belief that they’d always be lovers. She stayed with Monique that night and told her of the encounter on the plane, her friend nearly as amazed as Laura. Only Monique ever knew about Tom but had no idea of the length and depth of the relationship. That Laura’s lover was American never troubled Monique who found the casual, rugged quality of a few American men rather attractive. She’d always liked Tom for whom she acted as an infrequent go-between, only vaguely understanding the misery his love for her friend often caused him. The next morning, Laura left Michel with Monique, then headed for the first meeting of the day but stopping at a public phone.
“Tom,” she cried into the receiver, “how are you? It was wonderful seeing you, Tom. I still can’t believe you were on that plane.”
She quickly told him of all-day meetings and dinner obligations that night but had an idea: once business concluded tomorrow she’ll leave immediately for her sister upstate and, with her son happily with his cousins, return to Manhattan alone.
“We’ve waited this long,” she said with helpless laughter, “we can wait a few more days.”
She expected his eager reply but there was none.
“Tom? I cannot hear you, these streets are so loud. Will you wait?”
“Yes,” he heard himself crying to the universe.
“Tom I must run. I’ll see you in a few days,” and, her mouth close to the receiver, “I love you, Tom,” then hung up and hurried to the conference.
All that morning, throughout the afternoon and still at dinner that night, Laura noticed a mildly familiar excitement running through her that she knew wasn’t owing to Manhattan’s energetic pace. She called Tom again later in the day but he wasn’t home and left a tender message, and though she enjoyed seeing friends at dinner she secretly wished she were in Tom’s bed. The next morning after an early, final conference she rented a car and drove with her son upstate while considering the absolute fewest days she must spend with her sister.
Having agreed to wait for her return, Tom dismally knew they’d make love but rationalized that Laura didn’t count as another woman, that their relationship had its unique and exclusive code. He lunched with his agent whose early faith in him Tom valued more than any profits from book sales. He spent an hour doing small repairs on Mrs. Parisi’s apartment next door, then sat at her kitchen table sipping anisette as a soft breeze from an electric fan stirred loose strands of her white hair, brittle and thin as dried thread. He spoke with Cleo again that night, saying that he may as well see his general practitioner and dentist. She patiently understood though he heard a growing strain in her voice and might intuitively know. Still, he lay another night in the hammock sipping whiskey to dull his senses and waited for Laura’s call.
Their affair began after Laura finally relented to his charm and persistence, and this secret kept her life from being ordinary. She soon grew aware of her addiction at what she’d found only with Tom, and he too had realized what they shared and wanted only her. He had wondered how her husband suspected nothing, that if Laura were his wife he’d somehow surely know. Was she that deceptive or did her husband suspect but had his own lover or else he resigned himself to her affair so the marriage might remain for the good of their child? Tom had even once seen her with Jean-Louis along West 57th Street. He liked the look of the man and would’ve willingly accepted from him a slap in the face, then pledged again to end the affair, a resolution again lasting only until Laura’s next visit.
Laura’s younger sister, married with two boys, possessed an identical, buoyant spirit and fair complexion. They played tennis and spent leisure hours preparing meals brightened by French wine and gay conversation lasting hours over coffee and desserts, chocolates and sweet liqueurs. Laura thought often and thrillingly of Tom in New York, and during a late-night chat with Mary Ann felt a quiet, trembling instant when she nearly said something about him. Laura had kept this secret from her sister who had a stronger sense of order than she; it was even conceivable for Mary Ann to have forced the matter to a crisis. Sitting very still, Laura allowed the sensation to quietly pass.
Calling that night proved impossible. Early the next morning the families took a riverboat excursion and were gone all day, and when she finally had a chance to call Tom wasn’t home. She left a message about how much she missed him and would call again, but by then a persistent gloom had already descended over him and he was vaguely irritated at nearly everything, especially himself. He’d only stepped out for groceries when she called and now felt reluctant to leave the apartment at all. The situation was dismally familiar and angered him all the more since he’d allowed it to occur, and when she did not call the next day he packed a small bag and hoping the train at Penn Station would carry him from this heavenly, recurring nightmare.

iv

With her son at his cousins and aunt’s, Laura drove back to Manhattan. From Monique’s she called him repeatedly, leaving a bright, apologetic message the first time but nothing after that. She grew more irritated at each unanswered call but pushed away thoughts of those many times she hadn’t called after promising she would. The next morning she called again, then dialed Long Island information but had forgotten in which town he lived, and each had its own operator. Her anxiety that he might be unlisted grew with every failed attempt until the operator found a Thomas Colter in Sag Harbor which Laura should’ve known, for he loved the old whaling town. She called but hung up at the sound of him; since he might refuse returning to the city she wanted only to know where he was, then again rented a car and arrived in Sag Harbor three hours later.
It was a fine late May afternoon, the trees full and green after morning rain, sunlight rippling on the bay like silver, flashing fish. She parked on Main Street with a gourmet coffee shop, a trendy boutique beside the old Woolworth’s 5&10, a bait and tackle store, several sea-food restaurants, and an old, well-stocked bookstore where Tom had given readings. From a phone booth in front of a beach-ball window display, her heart skipping like the coins down the slot, she whispered at the sound of him, “Tom, can you talk?”
“Yes.”
Cleo had left only moments ago; she’d come the night before with salmon and white wine and loved the silk scarf he’d brought her, and the antique pencil box he found at the flea market in Marché Puces, and satin lingerie which she wore during their love making—and Tom had barely thought of Laura back in New York.
“Why’d you leave town?” she asked mildly irritated.
“You said a few days. After a few days I didn’t want to wait anymore.”
“I returned as soon as possible. I’m sorry Tom but there was nothing I could do.”
He took a breath and gazed at the ceiling beams, saying nothing.
“Didn’t you want to see me?”
“Of course,” he snapped, then his exasperation turned to resolve: “But I’m not coming back to the city.”
“You don’t have to. I’m in Sag Harbor.’
His heart surged and he was thrilled as much as panicked. For a moment he thought she was kidding but knew she wasn’t.
“Are you there, Tom?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s meet for coffee. Like our first date,” she said brightly, “at that Village café you liked. What was it?”
A dark café on a winter afternoon, her cheeks flushed by the cold ; she gave a kiss on his lips good-bye.
“Reggio’s.”
“Tom,” she said with weak tenderness, “I drove all this way to see you. Can’t we meet for a few minutes?”
She hesitated, then quietly, “Please,” and, as always, he relented.
They met at a café along Sag Harbor Bay specializing in organic coffee and herb teas served at outdoor picnic tables with dried flowers in miniature Perrier bottles in the center. She wore a white, oversized t-shirt, belted at the waist, black tights, black flats, sunglasses, and a smile that brightened when Tom approached. He looked grim. She kissed his cheek and he sat across from her, his glance shifting from her to the bright bay and fearing that his eyes resting for too long on Laura might leave him even weaker.
“Coffee too,” he said to the waitress.
“Surprised to see me?” she asked brightly and knew he felt better because he laughed quietly and shook his head no. “Why didn’t you stay in New York?” and her brightness dimmed. “You wanted to. What changed?”
His quiet smile had faded.
“Survival instincts, I guess.”
“Then why are you here now?”
His coffee arrived. He nodded with weak gratitude to the waitress and said, “Having coffee with an old friend.”
Laura’s face emptied: “I’m more than that to you,” she muttered and Tom instantly regretted his words.
“I’ve missed you,” she said. “You’ve really no idea. I don’t think you ever did.”
The faint sadness in her voice tugged at his heart and filling him with affection when he looked at her.
“I’ve missed you too,” he finally said. “That was one thing I couldn’t get used to.”
She roused herself, then whispered urgently, “We could have been together last night.”
The thought ached him and he felt strength slowly drain as if a valve on him somewhere had opened—but after their loving-making she’d always leave again; that’s what he found hardest, this constant yearning for her.
“Tom,” and she leaned closer, “take me to your place, your cottage. Just for me to see it.”
He knew what would surely happen there and how doing so might forsake any future with Cleo.
“No,” he said with quiet conviction.
Laura flinched slightly, then after a long silence asked, “So you love this girl?”
Tom pulled his eyes to hers: “Yes,” and didn’t look, but Laura quickly modified his answer; he only thought he did or perhaps wanted to, and besides in their long affair he had said he loved other women but his enchantment for them always ended and he came back to her. He merely loved this one differently than he loved her.
“Good,” Laura replied, and gazed at the bay with seeming indifference which Tom, as so often before, misread.
“Alright Tom,” and she sat back, “it’s your choice.”
Her attitude pained him. He took the check and Laura knew the order of events should now be her return to the city but needed to keep him near another few minutes.
“Do you want to walk me to the car?” she asked while rising from the table.
The quiet activity along Main Street was distracting and intrusive. They did not speak or look at each other, but the back of Tom’s hand brushed several times against her thigh. Stopping beside the rented car, Laura asked with false detachment, “Am I coming over?”
His silence soon weakened her, then she asked tenderly, “We’ve a chance to spend the night together. Don’t you want that?”
He lightly stroked her arm with his fingers.
“Very much. But we can’t have everything.”
“Why not?” she quietly demanded as she reached for his hand.
“Because we’re not perfect.”
They watched each other for a moment where Laura could see the softness for her in his eyes and wondered what else she could possibly do. With a weak, hopeless laugh she placed a hand on Tom’s chest and drew closer.
“I love you, Tom,” she said quietly. “I always will.”
Very lightly, he put an arm around her. After a long moment, Laura—always the stronger—separated reluctantly, moved to the driver’s door and did not look at him until after starting the engine, backing up a little, then shifting to ‘Drive’. She peered through the passenger window as Tom bent to look through as well. He was smiling faintly, his head tipped to one side, then she raised her hand, fingers barely moving, and slowly pulled away.

v

He arrived at his cottage in something like a daze and moving with enormous effort. The encounter exhausted him but he refused lying down where he’d surely replay their good-bye and regret his decision, suspecting he’d eventually regret it anyway. He phoned Cleo and said that an old buddy was in town who’d rented a boat for some twilight fishing, and despite another lie to Cleo he didn’t want to be with her while thinking of Laura Verney; he had been with other women while thinking of Laura and didn’t want to start that again, either. Cleo wanted to work late anyway, and Tom felt very fine having said no to Laura.
He tried focusing only on the sound of an ice cube dropped into his glass, the cap of the bottle unscrewed; he sniffed the sweet rum, listened to it pour into the glass, then left by the back door, birds scattering momentarily from his feeders. He walked the rolling lawn of tall grass, crabapple trees and wild rose vines, noticing everything because he made himself notice. The land sloped through thicker grass down to the bay’s pebbled shoreline where he closed his eyes and tried thinking only of the sound of soft, incoming waves and the bright point of the sun behind his lids.
He thought of Cleo, her dark eyes and short hair, her strange, vast paintings coming from such a delicate woman. He felt tenderness and admiration for her and again proud of himself for refusing a night with Laura however much he’d wished for it these years and he’ll probably regret forever but he’d remain true to Cleo even if she’d never have known.
The sun neared the horizon, turning more defined, like a ball, he thought however threadbare the image, or an orange ball he thinks to keep himself from thinking of something else; but a sparkling path glittered along the water, and if he followed it the path would lead to the city and a night with Laura. And with her the next morning. He again counted the few times they’d ever shared a night into morning: very few though the many, briefer nights had spoiled anything with anyone else. Suddenly the thought of returning to a dark cottage depressed him, so he headed back in the dusk.
At the cottage he poured another drink and tried keeping busy. He flipped through his LPs but nothing worked and he hated television because of commercials. He felt something was wrong somewhere but he couldn’t find it. By now Laura had arrived in Manhattan and he realized what she’d gone through even that day to see him. Mostly he had thought only of his needs and yearnings, rarely hers in a far more complicated life. He wanted to apologize for many things and took weak comfort knowing she always forgave him. Then he relented, and this brought a kind of relief. He imagined a long kiss on her throat, down along her belly; his breath quickened.
The phone suddenly ringing startled him; the machine answered.
“I’m at the Harbor Lodge on Bay Street,” she said, then gave a room number. “I’m here until morning.”
She waited believing he would come because she’d never missed a chance to see him and knew he wouldn’t either despite his resolve a few hours before. She knew this other girl might be at his cottage and would’ve heard the message but was desperate and didn’t care. Perhaps he’s at this girl’s place now and never heard the message at all, then an hour later her heart surged at the tap at her motel door.
They are tentative at first, their kisses soft and brief, for a while floating contentedly, a little unbelievingly at their nakedness in bed, in the dark room as the world around them fell away and their private world together in the fresh sheets surrounds them. His hand brushes the soft flesh on the side of her breast, the slope of her waist, along her hip to the swell of her bottom, her body thrilling and new and familiar all at once while sensation in her flows toward his hand. He pulls her against him and she loses a breath as the flame in him rises, and as she clasps him to her he feels sheer love for this woman and knows that sex is love, that this is how to best give it, there in the fucking.
His lips descend, slowly around and lingering over each small breasts. Dimly, half-consciously, aware after already knowing, she feels his erection, motionless and assertive, pressing against her thigh. He kisses her belly, lowers to where his fingers felt her wet surface and depths and he kisses her there, long and softly, then her thighs tremble.
Slowly his vigorous male energy envelopes her. She reaches between his legs for him, then feeds him into herself as both lovers sigh from his slow, first thrust. Her hand remains, moving him in and out of her and feeling him move with his own steady rhythm in and out, then her legs surround his hips and her fingers press the base of his spine so that he deepens. He feels her around him, each stroke of him spreading throughout her like waves moving to the limits of her and, like waves, returning. One wave and another flowing to the source of him inside her, raising in her a sensuality more reckless and desired even than tenderness. The flowing force of him gathers until there is too much to restrain; he shudders, his breath ceases, then he clutches her bottom with both hands and pulls her against him for all of him to enter and bringing her own waves of surrender crashing. She feels herself disappearing, that she is nothing now except where their bodies join, each cry softly rising until she too is spent.
They lay still long after their breaths returned and their heartbeats simmer. She ran her hands slowly up and down his sides, and after slowly lifting his head to look into her face he saw that she was softly crying. She always appeared loveliest then, in the peaceful, radiant calm after she cums, tears glistening in her distant, contented eyes. A car pulled slowly into the drive, tires grinding the pebbles as headlamps briefly lit the dark room; she pressed herself closer.
“Tom, what are we going to do?” she whispered as she had often whispered.
He’d believed he had the answer but now nothing was clear. In the darkness beyond the motel room waited the future, confusing and familiar and wonderful and, inevitably it seems, alone.
“Promise me one thing,” she said, rising on one elbow and looking into his eyes as the bedsheet fell away. “That you’ll always let me know where you are. When you come to Paris or if you ever leave New York or if you’re sick, that you’ll let me know.”
She had a rare, serious expression, and both her hands tightly clasped one of his.
“Do you promise?”
He enclosed her with the top-sheet and brought her down to him again.
“I do.”