Jonathan Franzen - Purity

“Sort of,” Pip said. “But it’s a pretty weird theory for a person who exposes people’s secrets for a living.”

“Were you not listening in the restaurant? I got trapped into this job. I hate the Internet as much as I hated my motherland.”

“I guess you did say that.”

“Were you not even listening to yourself? I’m not doing this job because I still believe in it. It’s all about me now. It’s my identity.”

He made a gesture of self-disgust.

“I don’t know what to say to you,” Pip said. “I already told you my secret. I told you my real name.”

“Your name is nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I also went through a shoplifting phase in middle school. I had quite a masturbation thing going when I was ten.”

“Didn’t everyone?”

“OK, so there’s nothing. I’m boring and ordinary. Like I said, you knew what you were getting into.”

Suddenly, without her quite knowing how he’d traversed the distance between them, he was pressing her into the corner again. He had his mouth to her ear and his hand wedged between her legs. There was a weird suspenseful moment of adjustment. She couldn’t breathe, but she could hear him breathing heavily. Then his hand moved up to her belly and down again into her jeans and underpants.

“What about this,” he murmured in her ear. “Is this not a private thing of yours?”

“Fairly private, yes,” she said, heart pounding.

“This is the reason I trust you?”

She couldn’t believe what was happening. He was putting a fingertip inside her, and her body wasn’t exactly saying no to it.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “Maybe.”

“Do I have your permission for this?”

“Um…”

“Just tell me what you want.”

She didn’t know what to say, but she probably should have said something, because, in the absence of a response, he was unzipping her jeans with his free hand.

“I know I was asking for it,” she whispered. “But…”

He drew his head back. There was an avid gleam in his eyes. “But what?”

“Well,” she said, squirming a little, “isn’t it kind of customary to kiss a person before you stick your finger in her?”

“That’s what you want? A kiss?”

“Well, I guess, between the two things, right at this moment, yes.”

He brought his hands up to her face and cupped her cheeks. She could smell her own private scent as well as his male body smell, a European smell, not unpleasant. She closed her eyes to receive his kiss. But when it came, she didn’t respond to it. Somehow it wasn’t what she wanted. Her eyes opened and found his looking into them.

“You have to believe this wasn’t why I brought you here,” he said.

“Are you sure it’s what you want even now?”

“In strict honesty? Not as much as I want to kiss a different part of you.”

“Whoa.”

“I think you’d like it. And then you could leave, and I could trust you.”

“Is this the way you always are with women? Was this how things went with Toni Field?”

He shook his head. “I told you. I’m not myself in transactions like that. I’m showing my true self to you because I want us to trust each other.”

“OK, but, I’m sorry — how does this make you trust me ?”

“You said it yourself. If Colleen finds out about this, she won’t forgive you. None of the interns will. I want you to have a secret that only I know.”

She frowned, trying to understand the logic.

“Will you give me that secret?” He put his hands on her cheeks again. “Come lie down with me.”

“Maybe it’s better if I just go back.”

“You’re the one who wanted to go to your room. You’re the one who made me come up here.”

“You’re right. I did.”

“So come lie down. The person I honestly am is a person who wants his tongue in you. Will you let me do that? Please let me do that.”

Why did she follow him to the bed? To be brave. To submit to the fact of the hotel room. To have her revenge on the indifferent men she’d left behind in Oakland. To do the very thing her mother had been afraid would happen. To punish Colleen for caring more about Andreas than about her. To be the person who’d come to South America and landed the famous, powerful man. She had any number of dubious reasons, and for a while, on the bed, as he slowed down the action, kissing her eyes and stroking her hair, kissing her neck, unbuttoning her shirt, helping her out of her bra, touching her breasts with his gaze and his hands and his mouth, tenderly easing down her jeans, even more tenderly peeling off her underpants, her reasons were all in harmony. She could feel his hands trembling on her hips, feel his own excitement, and this was something — it was a lot. He seemed honestly to want her private thing. It was really this knowledge, more than the negocitos he was expertly transacting with his mouth, that caused her to come with such violent alacrity.

But after it was over, the sensation of not liking him returned. She felt embarrassed and dirty. He was kissing her cheeks and her neck, thanking her. She knew what the polite thing to do was, and she could tell, from his unabated urgency, that he wanted it. Not to deliver would be selfish and perverse of her. But she couldn’t help it: she didn’t feel like fucking what she didn’t like.

“I’m sorry,” she said, gently pushing him away.

“Don’t be sorry.” He pursued her and climbed onto her, moving his clothed legs between her bare ones. “You’re remarkable. You’re everything I could have hoped for.”

“No, that was definitely great. That felt really nice. I don’t think I’ve ever come so fast or so hard. It was like, wowee-zowee.”

“Oh God,” he said, shutting his eyes. He took her head in his hands and humped her a little with the hardness in his pants. “God, Pip. God.”

“But, um.” Again she tried to push him away. “Maybe I should go back now. You said I could go back after you did that.”

“Pedro and I worked out a story about a broken truck axle. We have hours if you want them.”

“I’m trying to be honest. Isn’t that the point here?”

He must have tried to hide the look that appeared on his face then, because it was gone again immediately, replaced by that smile of his. For a moment, though, she’d seen that he was crazy. As if in a bad dream, a dream in which some guilty fact is forgotten and then suddenly remembered, it occurred to her that he had actually once murdered someone; that this was real.

“It’s fine,” he said with that smile.

“It’s not that I didn’t like the way you made me feel.”

“Truly, it’s fine.” Without kissing her, without even looking at her, he got up and went to the door. He straightened his shirt and hitched up his pants.

“Please don’t be angry with me.”

“I’m the opposite of angry,” he said, not looking at her. “I’m mad for you. Quite unexpectedly mad for you.”

“I’m sorry.”

In the Land Cruiser, to salvage some shred of dignity, she told Pedro that El Ingeniero had needed help with his negocios . Pedro, in reply, seemed to say that El Ingeniero’s work was very complicated and beyond his understanding, but that he didn’t have to understand it to be a good overseer at Los Volcanes.

When they got home, long after midnight, a light was still burning in Colleen’s room. Deciding that lies were better told fresh than stale, Pip went straight up the stairs to the room. Colleen was in bed with a workbook and a pencil.

“You’re up late,” Pip said.

“Studying for the Vermont bar. I’ve had this book for a year. Tonight seemed like a good night to finally open it. How was Santa Cruz?”