Familiar Spirit

Brian emerged from the closet-sized kitchen with two mugs and set them down on the low table. “I didn’t put any sugar in the blue one,” he said. He hesitated a moment, then sat on the couch. Sarah could feel his discomfort at the fact that she was still standing, so, after a moment’s uncertainty, she walked around the table and also took a seat on the couch, although at the far end from Brian.

“So how you doing?” she asked.

“Oh, fine. You?”

“Fine. Great.”

Things had suddenly become unbearably awkward. They both nodded at coffee which was too hot to drink, and avoided each other’s eyes. Sarah searched desperately for something to say, something neutral. But all she wanted to do was to shout at him to stop being awkward, to stop pretending they were strangers. She wanted to grab him, and burrow into his side, and pull off his bathrobe, and tickle him until his warm, rich chuckle flowed out and he responded, and hugged and kissed her as she wanted, and was hers again.

“What sort of tools do you need?” Brian asked. “You need something fixed? I can do it—I don’t have a class until after lunch.”

She stiffened. “I can do it myself.”

He smiled. “Sarah,” he said, in his gentle, pleasant voice.

The sound of her name, spoken like that, paralyzed her, and she stared at him helplessly.

Brian dropped his eyes, blushing slightly, and bent down to fish a pair of tennis shoes from under the table.

“I didn’t mean you couldn’t do it yourself,” he muttered. “Whatever it is. I just meant . . . I’d be glad to help, you know.” He busied himself putting on his shoes.

For a moment Sarah was tempted to take up his offer, to tell him all about the house, and about Jade. But only for a moment.

“It’s only a small thing I wanted to do,” she said coolly.

“It looked like a nice house,” Brian said. “I envy you all that space.”

“Oh? I thought you liked it here.”

“I do. But it is a little cramped. There’s nowhere to put the records, for one thing.”

It would be so easy, Sarah thought, to move a little closer to him on the couch. To slip her hands up under his robe—she could almost feel the warmth of his flesh now. Looking at him, watching the way he sat, the way he raised his cup of coffee to his lips, she knew how easy it would be to seduce him.

“Now you know the truth about me,” he’d whispered close to her ear some time during the first night they had spent together. “I’m easy.” It had been a joke, but it was true. He was easy. He never said no. He liked to please her. And she’d never had to seduce him, before—before, he’d always picked up her earliest signals, responding almost before she knew she wanted him, before—

Before Melanie.

Now, after Melanie, things were different. She could sit here all day willing him to touch her, and he would not respond. Had that special channel between them been jammed, or was he just pretending not to hear?

“So what tools did you want to borrow?”

Sarah looked at him, meeting his gentle brown eyes. She didn’t speak. She concentrated all her thoughts, all her will, on making him speak to her. Let him say something, or do something that could not be misunderstood. Let him make the first move, as he always had before. Surely the passion she felt couldn’t be one-sided—he couldn’t have forgotten her, and forgotten how he had felt about her, so soon. If he still wanted her, he must know he could have her, for an hour or a day or forever. All he had to do was make a move.

He set his mug down too hard, splashing coffee onto the table. He stood up, not looking at her, and said, “Let’s go get those tools you wanted.”

Through her bereavement, staring at his back, Sarah managed to speak in something like a normal voice. “Don’t you want—shouldn’t you get dressed first?”

But he mistrusted her now—or, she thought, with a glimmer of hope, he mistrusted himself. “No, it doesn’t matter. There’s no one to see.” He started down the stairs without looking back.

He wants me, Sarah thought, but there was no triumph in the thought, because he was still rejecting her. He was hurrying away to safety, not daring to take a chance.

How long would I need alone with him, Sarah wondered, to break through his defenses, to make him forget Melanie?

It was a useless question, because the moment was past. Wearily, Sarah got to her feet and went after him.

She found him standing in the narrow doorway of the storage shed, looking in, and she stood beside him, feeling the heat of his body all along one side as intently as if they were actually touching. He moved uneasily away, and Sarah took a painful pleasure in moving after him, maintaining the closeness he was afraid of. She was physically hungry for him. Standing beside him, greedily feasting on his presence, did not satisfy her any more than a starving man is eased by the odor of baking bread, but it was all she had.

“What do you want?” he asked, impatience sounding like self-pity in his voice.

She restrained herself. “I’ll need a crowbar and a hammer.”