The Crime Writer

I lay there in the dark beside her, wanting to touch her but not sure if that was the right call.

"That moved a little fast for me," I said. "I'd imagine it felt the same way to you."

She kept on her stomach, angled away, her head lowered to the cross of her arms. Her voice was hoarse and unsteady, but gentle. "Just lock the front door behind you, okay?"

"What are you feeling?"

"Philosophical."

"That's not a feeling."

"Oh, great. This game."

"Knock it off," I said.

She was silent for a long time, and then she said, "I'm sorry. That's a reasonable question. I don't know if I'm clear enough to answer it."

"So make it up."

"How do I feel…?" A car horn blared in the distance. From one of the apartments in floating proximity came Eric Clapton, an accompaniment to someone's romantic dinner. Caroline's shoulders seized a bit more, but she didn't make a noise, and then she hung her head off the bed and miraculously came up with a tissue and blew her nose, all the while keeping her face from view. She settled back into position. Her voice cracked when she spoke. "That if I'm not vigilant, undisclosed awful things will happen to me. And." A deep breath. "That I may not be brave enough to allow myself something like this."

We breathed for a while in the semidarkness, and then eventually I said, "Do you mind if I take the rest of my clothes off?"

She turned slowly, hair hiding one eye. Sheer lavender curtains filtered the faint lights from the street below. She watched me for a long time. "No."

She'd pulled me to her so furiously that my clothes were still clinging to me one shoe, both socks, a tangle of boxers at my ankle. I stripped and she watched me, and then I lay flat on her bed, hands at my sides, and said, "Okay. I have no expectations. I'm just lying here naked so you can look at me."

She pulled her shirt back into place, sat Indian style before me, and studied me clinically.

After a time I asked, "How do you feel now?"

"Anxious. I haven't, obviously, since…"

"I figured."

"Can I touch you?"

"Yes."

She pressed both palms flat against my chest and leaned, as if testing my consistency. She stroked my thigh with the tips of her nails. She cupped me in her hand and said, "You're so soft."

"Not if you keep that up."

She laughed, covering her mouth as if the sound had caught her off guard. She tugged out her ponytail holder, and her lank, sandalwood hair relaxed into wisps, which brushed my chest as she leaned over me. She felt my entire body, inch by inch, a blind person learning a new shape. After maybe twenty minutes of silent examination, she lifted off her own shirt.

Her torso, too, bore the marks of the abuse she'd endured, though they were less striking, inlaid against her splendid form. A short run of mottled flesh at her left shoulder, a ridge of stomach muscle, a gnarl of scar tissue at her ribs, the swell of her breasts.

"You can touch," she said. "Me."

I lifted my hands from my sides and explored her delightful, unpredictable body. Her breathing shifted. She tilted her head, let her hair spill across her face. Falling back, she pulled me on top of her again and clutched my back. Her breath came hot against my neck. It took time for her to unclench; we moved slowly, with patience, murmuring and kissing, one vivid moment at a time. And finally we were making love. It was not without awkwardness, but it wasn't without grace either.

Afterward she clung to me, started crying, and didn't stop. She wept with the abandon of a child, until she was limp, until her face was drained to a dishwater gray. Beneath the veneer of exhaustion and terror, she looked elated.

She slung a leg across my stomach and propped herself up on an elbow, her face beside mine. "Sorry I cried."

"I don't mind. Apologize to yourself if you want to."

She lowered her chin to my chest. "I used to be good at this, you know."

"I'm told I never was."

She laughed, hit me weakly.

"They say the eyes are the windows to the soul," I said. "I do not believe this to be true. I believe the toes are the windows to the soul."

"Oh? How are my toes?" She wiggled them, showing off.

"Magnificent."

We talked a bit more and then dozed off together. At 11:32 I awoke with a start.

"What?" she said sleepily. "What's wrong?"

I sat up to try to slow my breathing.

She felt my shoulders. "Jesus, you're drenched."

My dream-memory streamed back in vivid detail, me in my car the night of, driving to Genevieve's. Alone. Running up her stairs. Alone. Finding the key. Alone.

"I can't spend the night here. The last time I spent the night with someone was when I…"

"You don't know."

"Exactly."

"Either way. Whatever you did or didn't do, you had a brain tumor."

"I've done or not done plenty since then."